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Students may start locking up their cellphones statewide next school year if a newly proposed bill passes the 2027 legislative session.
The Phone-Free Schools Act, one of Gov. Bob Ferguson’s top legislative priorities, would change how phones can be used in Washington schools.
“My mission as governor is to get this legislation across the finish line and sign it into law,” Ferguson said Oct. 2 while announcing the details of his proposal at an event in Spokane.
The proposed legislation would require school districts across Washington to implement policies prohibiting students from using personal electronic devices during the entirety of the school day: A policy known as a “bell-to-bell” ban.
Under the new proposal, students who bring devices to school would have to keep their devices off and stored in a “secure and inaccessible location” throughout the school day, such as a classroom caddy or a lockable pouch.
The proposal provides exceptions to the phone ban, including accommodations for students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), plans protected under federal civil rights law and narrow personal circumstances.
If the bill passes, Washington would join the 31 other states and the District of Columbia, which all restrict phone use in schools, 22 of which have a bell-to-bell ban. Right now, with no such legislation in place, Washington has a failing grade in a national report card.
While there is no statewide law on school-day device usage in Washington, some individual school districts have imposed their own policies restricting use, especially since State Superintendent Chris Reykdal challenged district leaders to do so in 2024.
Local district policies
Federal Way Public Schools’ new phone policy, which started the 2025-2026 school year, similarly mandates that elementary schoolers must keep devices silenced and stored all day, providing more leniency to middle and high schoolers, who can access phones during lunch periods.
The Kent School District started enforcing a new high school cellphone policy the first day of the 2025-2026 school year, under which phones brought to school must be stored in individual boxes on desks or in teacher-controlled lockers.
The Auburn School District also implemented a new device policy for the 2025-2026 school year, under which students who bring devices to school must silence and store them in a backpack or locker. For elementary schoolers, devices must be stored all day. For middle schoolers, devices can be used during lunch. For high schoolers, devices can be used during lunch and passing periods.
In the Renton School District, middle and high schoolers cannot use phones during class periods and elementary schoolers cannot use phones anytime during the school day.
If the Phone-Free Schools Act passes, local school districts will have to adapt existing policies to adhere to the new state law. And school districts who do not have any device policies in place — which make up about a third of districts across the state, according to a survey done this spring by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) — will have to act.
The goal of restricting device use in schools is to support the mental health and learning of students.
Teenagers nationwide are on their phones for about a quarter of the school day on average, according to one nationwide study. Teachers report that rampant phone use in schools is a major distraction from schoolwork, according to a Pew Research Center study.
“The research is clear: school-day phone use has a negative impact on student learning, ability to focus, attendance and mental and emotional health,” Ferguson said at the event.
“We don’t allow smoking on planes anymore,” Ferguson said. “I’m confident that in a few years, allowing cellphones in schools will feel just as wrong.”
