Not instruction
Study hall
Not allowed
No. Study hall is named alongside lunch and passing time as a period when devices must stay stored.Q8
State guidanceIssued by the Commissioner of Education under the statute. Revisable by NJDOE without new legislation.
Your district can only make this stricter. Nothing in the statute lets a board allow more than the state guidelines do.
Why this one is disputed
Study hall is supervised time set aside for independent work, not instruction. Where a school allows music during independent work, NJDOE directs students to district-issued devices rather than their own.
The passage that governs this period
Quoted, not summarisedNo. The bell-to-bell policy requires personal internet-enabled devices to be off and stored for the entirety of the school day. Students may not access these devices during lunch on campus, study hall, time between classes, and/or other periods during the school day.
Study hall is named in the same breath as lunch and the corridor. It is not named in the statute at all.full text
Where this answer comes from
Every one links to the originalNew Jersey Department of Education, Guidance for Schools on Student Use of Internet-Enabled Devices: Frequently Asked Questions, July 2026, Q8