District policy · 2026-2027
Trenton Public School District
Mercer County · K-12 district · Grades 4-12
Last verified · policy year 2026-2027
Read this entry with one caveat
The pouch, not a rule about periods, is what closes lunch, passing time and study hall here: the pouch stays locked from arrival to dismissal. The district's communication does not describe PreK-3.
Period by period
2 of 6 not yet verifiedEach row is either something this district’s own document says, or an explicit admission that we have not found it. We never infer one period from another. Passing time, lunch and study hall, the three periods the statute never mentions, are marked with an amber rule.Q8
- Class time
- Not allowed
- Phones and other personal internet-enabled devices are prohibited.Instructional time. Restricted under the statute itself.
- Passing timeNot named in the statute
- Not allowed
- Phones and other personal internet-enabled devices are prohibited.Between classes. NJDOE guidance restricts it; the statute never mentions it.
- LunchNot named in the statute
- Not allowed
- Phones and other personal internet-enabled devices are prohibited.On-campus lunch. NJDOE guidance restricts it; the statute never mentions it.
- Study hallNot named in the statute
- Not allowed
- Phones and other personal internet-enabled devices are prohibited.Study hall. NJDOE guidance restricts it; the statute never mentions it.
- School bus
- Not yet verified
- We have not found a source that states this district's rule for this period. We have not guessed one.State guidance permits phones on buses unless the district goes further. A district rule here is stricter than the state floor.
- Before and after school
- Not yet verified
- We have not found a source that states this district's rule for this period. We have not guessed one.State guidance permits phones outside the school day unless the district goes further.
How phones are stored
A local choice, not a state oneLocked pouch
Phones go into a magnetically locking pouch (Yondr or similar) that the student carries but cannot open until dismissal.
Yondr pouches in grades 4-12. Students put their phone in the pouch on arrival, keep the pouch in their own possession all day, and unlock it at dismissal.
What happens if the rule is broken
We have not found this district’s stated consequences. Not yet verified
Asking for an exception
The statute names what a policy must accommodateNo waiver process is described. “Families can still reach their children through their school's main office whenever necessary, and school staff are always available to assist students who need to contact home.”
The statute itself names circumstances a policy must accommodate, including an IEP, a 504 plan, a documented health plan, translation needs, certain caregiving responsibilities, and emergencies.s.2.b(3)-(5)
In the district’s own words
Quoted exactly, not summarisedYou may hear the term “bell-to-bell” used when describing the district's phone-free learning environment. Simply put, it means students' phones remain secured from the beginning of the school day until dismissal.
Trenton Public School District · read · Open the document
Everything else on this page is our reading of Trenton Public School District’s policy. This is the policy. We quote rather than paraphrase so you can check us against the document instead of taking our word for what it says.
Sources
1 primary, 0 corroboratingNothing on this page can be published without at least one primary source attached to it. That is enforced by the database, not by a habit.
District decisionPrimary source
Trenton Public School District · July 10, 2026 · checked
Trenton Public Schools will continue using Yondr pouches in grades 4-12 throughout the 2026-27 school year.