Track B: the durable route
Ask the people who wrote the law to say what they meant
A statutory carve-out for non-instructional time is slower than a guidance revision, and it survives a change of Commissioner. Track B is not an alternative to Track A. It is the belt to its braces.
Why bother, if NJDOE could just do it
Because a guidance document can be revised back. The Commissioner who issued the January 2026 guidance is not the Commissioner today, and the one after that is unknown. An amendment putting non-instructional time in the statute settles the question in the one place a new administration cannot quietly reopen.s.2.a
It is also slow, and it should be. The bill that became this law was introduced in September 2024 and signed in January 2026: sixteen months, two committee hearings, four floor votes.source
Four steps
Find out who represents you
New Jersey has 40 legislative districts. Each one elects one Senator and two Assembly members, so you have three legislators, not one. Enter your street address on the Legislature's district map. Do not guess from your town, because Newark and Jersey City are each split between two districts.source
Write to the district office, not just the State House
Each member's page on the roster lists a district office with a street address, a phone number and an @njleg.org email, and there is a contact form on the same page. The Legislature's own guidance is that constituent mail is what legislators are there for: their district offices exist to respond to it.sourcesource
Give your full address
Not to be identified, but to be sorted. Offices triage by whether you are a constituent, and an address is how they tell. The Legislature's own contact form limits you to three legislators from a single district for exactly this reason.source
Ask for something a legislator can actually do
Only a Senator or an Assembly member can introduce a bill. There is no public petition, no form, no application. What the Legislature's own guidance says is that a member may sponsor a bill “at the suggestion of a constituent”, and that the non-partisan Office of Legislative Services drafts it at the legislator's direction. So the ask is: please sponsor or support an amendment. You cannot commission the drafting yourself.source
Who wrote this law
If one of these is your legislator, you are writing to somebody who already worked on this subject and knows the file. That is an advantage, not an obstacle. A sponsor who is told their own law is being read more broadly than they intended has a reason to care.source
| Primary sponsor | Chamber | District |
|---|---|---|
| Paul D. Moriarty | Senate | 4 |
| Kristin M. Corrado | Senate | 40 |
| Rosaura “Rosy” Bagolie | Assembly | 27 |
| Cody D. Miller | Assembly | 4 |
| Carmen Theresa Morales | Assembly | 34 |
The bill also had nine co-sponsors across both houses. The full list, the committee statements and every roll call are on the Legislature’s own bill page, which is more current than anything we could reprint.
How a bill reaches a hearing
After a bill is introduced and read for the first time, the Senate President or the Assembly Speaker refers it to a committee. An education bill goes to the Senate Education Committee or the Assembly Education Committee.Rule 16:1
Nothing happens until the committee chair puts it on a published agenda. Both houses require that agenda to be public roughly five days ahead. The Senate says five State working days, the Assembly five days. Neither chamber may report a bill that was not listed on it.Rule 12:3Rules 10:9, 10:11 That published agenda is your notice, and the Legislative Calendar is where it appears.source
Committee meetings are generally held on Mondays and Thursdays at the State House Annex in Trenton.source
The education committees
Membership changes with each two-year session, so we link the pages rather than printing a roster that will be wrong within a year. Each committee page lists its members and its committee aides. The aide is the person you actually contact.
How testimony actually works
Citizens present who wish to be heard on a matter under consideration by the committee shall be afforded an opportunity to speak, subject to reasonable limitations as may be set by the chair.Rule 22:2(a)
The Senate Rules put it plainly, and a full-text search of them for age, adult, minor and child returns nothing about witnesses: the rules do not mention a witness’s age at all. The chair sets the protocol, and may limit how many people speak and for how long.
You do not have to show up to be heard. Written testimony emailed to the committee aide counts, and the Legislature’s FAQ says so directly.source For a student who cannot get to Trenton on a Monday morning, that is the realistic route.
Can a student under 18 testify?
A draft to your own legislator
Send it to all three of the people who represent you: your Senator and both Assembly members. Send it separately rather than as one group email. Then change it, because an office that receives the same paragraph from thirty people logs one campaign and moves on.
Change this before you send it. Put your real street address in. That is how the office confirms you live in the district, and it is the difference between constituent mail and everything else. Then rewrite the two bracketed paragraphs in the middle. If you keep only one thing from this draft, keep the sentence saying you support the law's purpose: an amendment is easy to support, a repeal is not.
Subject: A narrow amendment to P.L. 2025, c. 195 on non-instructional time Dear Senator / Assemblywoman / Assemblyman [name], I live in [town], which is in your district, and I am a [student in grade __ / parent / teacher] in the [name] school district. Thank you for the work you do. I am writing about P.L. 2025, c. 195, the law on student use of internet-enabled devices, and about how the Department of Education has interpreted it. I support the law's purpose. Phones in a classroom during instruction are a real problem and I am not asking anyone to undo the restriction on instructional time. What I am asking is narrower. The statute directs the Commissioner to develop guidelines prohibiting "non-academic use of an internet-enabled device on school grounds during the school day." It does not mention lunch, study hall or passing time: those words appear nowhere in the text. The Department has read "during the school day" as bell-to-bell, and its FAQs say students may not use their devices during on-campus lunch, study hall, or the time between classes. I think the Legislature could make its intention explicit by amending the statute so that the guidelines do not apply to non-instructional periods, and I would ask you to consider sponsoring or supporting such an amendment. Two things make me think this is a reasonable line to draw. First, the Department's own FAQs already permit device use on a school bus and during an off-campus open lunch period, both unstructured and non-instructional. Second, the statute already recognises that some students have obligations during the school day: section 2.b(5)(d) creates an exception for a student who is routinely responsible for the care of a family member. I know a lunch exception is harder to run in a school that uses locked pouches, and I am not going to pretend it is simple. [Add what you think would actually work in your school.] [Replace this paragraph with something only you can say: one specific, true thing about your own school or family.] If it would be useful, I would be glad to submit written testimony if this ever comes before the Education Committee, and I have followed my school's policy throughout. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, [Your name] [Street address, town and ZIP: this is how the office confirms you are a constituent] [Email or phone, if you would like a reply]