Something remarkable happened in 2025: about 18 states banned students’ access to smartphones and other personal electronic devices from the first to the last bell of the school day (bell-to-bell). More states followed in 2026. This shift reflects growing awareness that these devices are intentionally designed to steal our children’s attention – negatively affecting school environments and obstructing effective learning.
Rave reviews are pouring in from bell-to-bell schools across the country. Disciplinary incidents are down, attendance is up, grades are improving, and students report feeling more connected to one another and to their school. The reason: each of these schools has given their students a 6- to 7-hour break from notifications, addictive pulls, and social drama that comes with their screens.
These students also no longer fear classmates recording their most vulnerable and embarrassing moments and sharing them with the world. This is a win-win. Recently, the Massachusetts House passed its own bell-to-bell bill — but with a catch.
Massachusetts is the only state in the country proposing funding for a pilot program for a tech solution to disable phones by blocking Wi-Fi access, while leaving camera, video, and, for some, texting capabilities intact. Students would be allowed to keep their phones in their backpacks or lockers, leaving them semi-accessible throughout the day.
That may not sound so bad – until you look at the research.
The Brain Drain Study conducted in 2017 found that having a phone in the room, even when it’s out of sight and turned off, is distracting to students. In 2023, the study was repeated, and the results confirmed. “Based on the available research findings, it seems advisable that Smartphones should not even be near learners at periods of learning.” Perceived accessibility keeps students mentally tethered to their phones. Their dopamine levels spike, and unfulfilled urges to click on notifications compete with whatever is happening in the classroom.
The problem doesn’t stop there:
● Students are resourceful. They frequently bypass school firewalls using VPNs or by exploiting device-level settings that blocking apps can’t override due to operating system permissions. Parents and educators consistently report that students stay ahead of monitoring software (Marsh et al., 2024). They find spots outside of the building’s geofence, slip outside for five minutes, or wait for the system to go down.
● Privacy is at risk. Granting a third-party app the ability to restrict a personal device often requires invasive permissions. A study of 14 school-based surveillance companies found that 86% monitored students outside of school hours and on personal devices (O’Daffer et al., 2025). Some systems can analyze emails, web searches, and private social media messages when given administrator-level access.
● Bias is a real concern. Automated monitoring tools often use AI that may disproportionately flag marginalized students or inadvertently out LGBTQ+ students based on their private search data (O’Daffer et al., 2025).
● The surveillance possibility: Students need to download the tech app onto their personal devices. The ability to track students, even outside of school, is particularly problematic for vulnerable groups like LGBTQIA+ and immigrant populations.
Inaccessible storage during the school day is what experts like Jonathan Haidt, Jean Twenge, and Jared Cooney Horvath recommend. It untethers students from their devices, causes no privacy, bias or surveillance risk, and removes the opportunity for a student’s most embarrassing moments to be caught on-camera.
Watertown High School has already piloted a tech-blocking solution in 2025. Six months in, school committee members and parents raised concerns: texting, camera, and video use remained unblocked, and not all students routinely “tapped in,” shifting the enforcement burden onto teachers.
So why is Massachusetts proposing a tech-blocking pilot that avoids inaccessible storage?
That is the question every Massachusetts resident needs to ask their legislators before it’s too late. Find your state legislators’ contact information at: malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator. Call and ask why. Let them know you want nothing
less than the best practice for all Massachusetts students.
Massachusetts has an opportunity to meaningfully improve the emotional well-being and academic success of every student in the Commonwealth. Let’s not settle for anything less than what the research supports.
Deb Mann Schmill and Kara Lopez Salvi
About: Deb Mann Schmill is the Founder and President of the Becca Schmill Foundation and Co-Founder of Distraction-Free Schools Policy Project, and Kara Lopez Salvi is a Watertown High School Parent and works as an educator/school counselor in a Boston area public high school.