The Legislature told the Commissioner to write guidelines prohibiting non-academic device use on school grounds during the school day. It never used the words lunch, study hall or passing time.s.2.b(2)
The rules
Three different things get called “the law”.
A statute, a set of state guidance documents, and your district’s own policy. They say materially different things, only one of them is actually a law, and which layer a rule comes from tells you who is able to change it.
Where a rule can come from
Only one is a statuteNJDOE read that as bell-to-bell and said so in its glossary, then applied it to lunch, study hall and passing time in its FAQs.Key TermsQ8
includes time in between class periods and lunchKey Terms
Your board picks the storage method, the consequences and the exception process, and may go further than the state requires. It may not go the other way.s.2.e
Read the rules
Every page cites its document- What the statute saysState lawP.L.2025 c.195 in full: what it requires the Commissioner to do, what it requires your board to do, and the words it does not contain.
- What NJDOE guidance saysState guidanceThe Commissioner's guidance and FAQs, including the bell-to-bell definition, the storage options, and the grade bands.
- What your district decidesDistrict decisionEvery choice a board of education actually makes, and the one direction it is not permitted to move in.
- ExceptionsIEP and 504 accommodations, health plans, translation, student caregivers, no-reasonable-alternative authorisations, and emergencies.
- DefinitionsWhat counts as an internet-enabled device, what does not, and what bell-to-bell is defined to mean, with the difference between the statute's words and the guidance's.
- All sixteen NJDOE answersThe Department's own FAQ document, question by question, restated in plain language and cited to the original.
If you only want the answer for one period of the day, go to the school-day pages instead. If you want to know who can change a particular rule, that is who decides what.