New Jersey · P.L.2025 c.195, in force since September

“Can I use my phone at lunch?”

No. And the law never said so.

The statute the Legislature passed never mentions lunch. It says the guidelines must prohibit non-academic device use during the school day^s.2.b(2), then never defines what the school day is. The Department of Education defined it, in its own guidance, to include lunch.^{Key Terms}

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The obvious objection, first: lunch happens during the school day, so you might think the statute settles it. It would, if the statute said what the school day is. It does not. That single undefined phrase is the whole argument, and what one Commissioner defined, a Commissioner can define differently.

Every period on this page is the same kind of time.

None of them is instruction. Nobody is teaching, and nobody is being taught. The state permits a phone in one column and bans it in the other, and the thing that separates them is not whether class is happening.

Phone allowed

On the school bus
Yes. Unless the school district’s policy further restricts student access to internet-enabled devices, students may use internet-enabled devices on school buses.^Q14
Lunch, off campus
When a student leaves school campus, whether for an open lunch period, internship, or other purpose, they should be permitted to use their personal internet-enabled devices.^Q15
Before and after school
students are permitted to use their personal internet-enabled devices for after-school or before-school activities, before a sports practice, or at any other time outside of the regular school hours^Q2

Phone banned

Lunch, on campus
No. … Students may not access these devices during lunch on campus, study hall, time between classes^Q8
Study hall
The bell-to-bell policy requires personal internet-enabled devices to be off and stored for the entirety of the school day^Q8
A club meeting at lunch
For extracurricular activities that occur during the school day … students are not permitted to use their internet-enabled devices^Q10

The line the state drew runs along where you are standing, not along whether teaching is happening. A student eating lunch on the lawn outside school may use a phone.^Q15 The same student, eating in the cafeteria, may not.^Q8

So we read the law

Search it yourself: the PDF is linked

195_.PDFN.J.S.A. 18A:36-40b

The guidelines shall, at a minimum … prohibit non-academic use of an internet-enabled device on school grounds during the school day…

Searched the full text for

“lunch”0results
“study hall”0results
“passing time”0results
“school day”2results

Four defined terms in the whole Act: board of education, internet-enabled device, non-internet-enabled device, public school. The school day is not among them.^s.1

One phrase does all the work, and nobody defined it.

Lunch. The walk between classes. Bell to bell. None of it is in the Act. All of it comes from the Department’s own glossary.^Q8

And one requirement the guidance did not meet

The same section orders the Commissioner to write age appropriate and grade-level differentiated guidelines^s.2.b(1). What resulted is the same floor for a five-year-old and a seventeen-year-old. Only the advice around it changes.^{Grade-Level Differentiated Guidelines}

What the statute does and does not say

They have already done this once

For a period the law actually named

The Legislature named school buses
…during regular school hours, on a school bus, or during school-sanctioned events…^s.2.d
The Department decided not to restrict them
boards of education may wish to consider including provisions in their policy for limiting student use of internet enabled devices on school buses^{Considerations}
So phones are allowed on the bus
Yes. Unless the school district’s policy further restricts student access to internet-enabled devices, students may use internet-enabled devices on school buses.^Q14

The Commissioner has already decided that not every period the law covers needs a ban.

Buses are named in the Act twice. Lunch isn’t named at all. The Department restricted the one it was told about and left the other to districts. The reach of this rule is already a departmental judgement call, not a fixed line the Legislature drew.

When the Department drew up these rules it was required to consult five groups. Every one was an association of adults who work in schools.^s.2.c

Most people already want this

National survey, not New Jersey

68% of teens want phones put away during class and allowed the rest of the day.

That is not a fringe view and it is not a demand to scrap the rules. It is the most popular position among teens by a distance, and among their parents too. Only 8% of teens want the policy New Jersey adopted.^{Preferred rules}

“No matter what your school’s current rules are, which of these rules would you prefer?”
Who was asked	Away all day	Away in class only	No rules
Teens (13–17)	8%	68%	24%
Parents of teens	33%	60%	7%
Parents, all school ages	41%	53%	7%

“Do you think the school’s rules for personal device use are too lenient or too strict?” By the policy the respondent’s own school actually runs.
Their school’s policy	Teens: too strict	Teens: just right	Parents: just right
Phones away all day	64%	31%	75%
Phones allowed outside class	34%	54%	75%

Letting phones out at lunch nearly doubles how many students think the rules are fair, and costs nothing in parent approval.

Parents call the rules “just right” at exactly the same rate under both policies, 75% either way. The disagreement is not between students and their parents. It is between students and a rule written without asking them.^{Rules too lenient or too strict}

What this is and is not. A national survey of 1,699 adults with a school-aged child and 364 teens aged 13–17, weighted to be nationally representative, fielded on USC’s Understanding America Study panel. It is not New Jersey data, and it does not tell you what students at your school think. That is why this site runs its own survey.^Methodology

Straight answers

The questions people search

Every answer below is the same answer this site gives everywhere else, with the document it comes from. Where the honest answer is that a district has not said, it says that instead of guessing.

Does New Jersey's phone ban include lunch?

In almost every district, yes. The statute itself never says lunch: it requires district guidelines to prohibit non-academic use during the school day, and it never defines what the school day is. The Department of Education defined it, in guidance, as bell to bell. Of the 34 districts tracked on this site, 32 prohibit phones at lunch and 2 have not said.^s.2.b(2) See all 34 districts

Can my district let students use phones at lunch?

A district cannot go below the state guidelines, and the guidelines currently cover the whole school day. So the change has to come from the Department of Education revising its guidance, or from the Legislature amending the statute. That is a real route rather than a technicality: guidance is written by the Commissioner and a Commissioner can revise it. Who can change what

Does the law say students cannot use phones on the school bus?

No, and this is the strongest evidence that the school day has edges. The Legislature named school buses twice in the Act. The Department then told boards they may wish to consider restricting bus use, and its FAQ permits it. Of the 34 districts tracked here, 8 say something about buses and every one of them allows phones there. Not one prohibits it.^Q14 The bus precedent

When did the New Jersey phone ban start?

It was signed in January 2026 and first applies to the 2026-2027 school year, so this is the first year students are under it. Districts had to adopt their own policy to carry it out, which is why the details differ from one district to the next while the floor is the same everywhere.^source What the statute says

What about study hall and passing time?

Both fall inside the school day as the Department defined it, so both are covered. The words study hall and passing time appear nowhere in the statute. Of the 34 districts tracked here, 28 prohibit phones in study hall, one of them with exceptions written in, and 6 have not addressed it. Period by period

Are there exceptions?

Yes, and they are in the statute rather than left to districts. A policy must allow use required by an IEP, a 504 plan or a student health plan, use for a documented medical need, and use in an emergency. Districts also commonly allow teacher-directed academic use and translation support.^s.2.b(3) The exceptions in full

Is this site arguing for phones in class?

No. The case here is that lunch, study hall and passing time are not instruction, and that the statute never said they were. Class time is not in dispute, and nothing on this site asks for it to change. Read the case

The Department published sixteen questions of its own. All sixteen, answered and cited.

Responses so far

Add yours to the count.

The state’s own guidance tells districts to revisit this policy every year using feedback from students.^{Communicating Policy} Three minutes, neutral questions, and we never ask for your name or your school.

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34 New Jersey districts are tracked here, with the source document for every line.