You’ve probably heard the bad news. On January 8, 2026, 12 days before his term ended, ex-Governor Phil Murphy signed a bill requiring all public schools in New Jersey, K-12, to ban phone usage during school hours starting in the 2026-27 school year. If you’re not a senior, a locked pouch for your cellular device unfortunately seems to be in your future.
Murphy’s administration called the policy a “bell-to-bell” ban. Now, in SBHS Principal Peter Varela’s eyes, this schedule seems to be “up to interpretation.” Whether it’s from the 7:40 AM to 2:20 PM starting and ending bells, or from in-class until any non-instructional time, such as lunch, HAP, or passing period, could be for the school to decide. For SBHS, no plan is set in stone yet, as in order to figure out what will work best for our student body, new policies take a few weeks or months of adjustment before we understand how they can work at our school. This policy, similarly, will be something fluid and tentative during the next school year, and administration is willing to work with students and staff to figure out how we can have the best balance while implementing the ban.
Mr. Varela visited a school in Monmouth County where phones were already banned during class time only. He said “I liked what they were doing there, because it seemed like all the kids were engaged in learning, asking questions, talking to each other in class, while still being able to have fun on their devices during lunch.”
Looking into the law itself, phone use is prohibited during regular school hours and on school buses “when the student is under the direct supervision of a teaching staff member or employee of the board of education.” The difference between state-mandated and district-mandated policies is the state recognizes that different districts’ stakeholders and policy-makers have different priorities, and so there is more leniency district-to-district with how each board of education decides to go about implementing it. Whether lunch or after-school events count as being under “direct supervision” of a teacher isn’t clear purposefully. Our district will decide that domestically.
Shockingly to SB, the bill seemed pretty popular among lawmakers and school districts in the state. According to Murphy, it won’t immediately ban all cellphone usage; rather, it will force all 600+ NJ school districts to come up with a guideline that minimizes cellphone usage in schools in order to encourage students to learn more and be distracted less.
Everyone’s wondering: what if you’re being sneaky, using your phone, and get caught? Will violating this state policy have you end up in jail? Well, if you’ve noticed the increased police and security presence, they’re ready to make arrests. I’m kidding—Mr. Varela said, “I didn’t get into education to punish kids. I’m here to support them.” And while punishment will be in place because, sometimes, our school is given non-negotiables that we are told to follow, such as this law, we can still use it to make kids see that they can focus on learning and socializing more without phones, as devastating as it may sound.
Phys. Ed. teacher Ms. Heidi Henning said, “There are still a lot of unanswered questions that teachers and administrators would probably like to know about as the ones watching the kids. It’s hard to enforce it with 3,000 kids around. So even though we’re not sure what the best bet is, this is a process where everyone needs to adapt and learn quickly.”
And while, yes, it seems frustrating not knowing what the future will be with such a drastic change, we have to remember that this change was dumped on us by the state of NJ for us to figure out together, including students, parents, teachers, and administrators.
