As the number of school districts nationwide banning cellphones increases, so too are the ways students are getting around the bans.
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It can be as simple as a hallway interaction.
“Like, before class, say my friend will go up to me and say, ‘Hi, can I use your phone to put in the caddy to act like that’s my phone, so I can cheat on a test?’” says Sawyer Isberian, a sophomore at Governor Livingston High School in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.
The state’s “bell-to-bell” ban is most closely associated with cellphones, but it also means no smartwatches, AirPods or personal technology devices during school hours, including lunch and recess.
Still, workaround strategies abound. Students use smaller and harder-to-detect Apple Watches to cheat, they buy cheap burner phones to present to educators if confronted, they hide their AirPods beneath sweatshirt hoods and use their devices in private places like bathrooms, according to Isberian.
As students return for the new school year, bans on devices are becoming stricter. Thirty-nine U.S. states now practice some form of phone restriction, with several enforcing bell-to-bell bans. That’s up from 35 last year, according to The Associated Press, which notes that the number of bans adopted by states has risen dramatically after starting in Florida in 2023. The restrictions have led to mixed results from parents and students – as well as the bevy of workaround strategies.
Ahmad Hamdeh, the principal of Clifton High School in Clifton, New Jersey, is familiar with the tactics. Both Clifton and Governor Livingston enforced a phone ban starting last school year and requiring students to put their phones in pouches in the front of the room.
“We’ve collected burner phones,” Hamdeh says. “What they’ll do is come up to the pouch in the front of the room and they’ll just put a phone case in. A lot of kids will just say, ‘I don’t have a phone.’”
Hamdeh, a principal of 3,000 students at Clifton – the largest single-building high school in New Jersey – has his work cut out for him. The state has not provided firm guidance or funding to help districts execute the policy, leaving individual schools to develop their own blueprints.
He plans to continue requiring students to place their phones in a pouch at the front of each classroom, supported by a more direct and universal enforcement policy this year. An effective policy begins with all teachers being on the same page, according to Hamdeh. During the first weeks of school, he plans to conduct walkthroughs in every classroom to ensure consistent enforcement.
In some districts the phone ban policy isn’t as new. The Corning-Painted Post Area School District in upstate New York had phone bans since August 2025 using secure, lockable pouches.
Such pouches are increasingly employed across the country to enforce bans. The pouch is given to the student, who places their phone inside. It features a magnetic lock that can only be opened using a metallic base provided by the schools.
“The expectation when we started was that students would place their phone in the pouch as they came through the door,” Michael Simons, a journalism teacher at Corning High School says. “So the action of the placing was observable by the school administration.”
The metal bases used to unlock and lock the pouches are hard mounted inside enclosures at the main entrances of the school. The district also places them on mobile carts, with several upon entry and exit of the school so as to not create chaos at the final bell.
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There were initial growing pains, according to Simons. Some students forgot to unlock their pouches before going home. Others substituted alternative items into the pouch – Simons says he’s heard of a deck of cards, a calculator or a piece of metal.
Growing pains have extended to the parents as well. When Hamdeh sent a letter to his district in New Jersey outlining the phone ban in place for this school year, it took off on Facebook after someone posted his letter announcing the policy.
“There are now 159 comments on this,” Hameh says, scrolling through the comments and reading a few aloud. “One parent says, ‘Good luck.’ Another parent said, ‘Nope’ – like, just ‘nope’ in the comments. Another one says, ‘The same rule should go for the teachers.’ Another one: ‘I don’t approve.’ Or, ‘In case of an emergency, I need to be able to get my kid.’”
While students and parents have pushed back in different ways, not all of the reactions have been negative. A familiar activity in the ‘80s and ‘90s has even resurfaced.
“It’s like a spectacular, phenomenal, positive outcome,” Simons says. “There’s more conversation and engagement, student to student, in the hallways than we’ve seen in a long time – and hacky sacks are back.”
Simons described the scene in the main lobby during lunch periods: Multiple groups of students playing hacky sack take over the lobby, while teachers cruise by to get a “bump, kick and a hit” on the way through.
Harrison School District 2 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, has recently invested in hacky sacks as well as jump ropes, balls and giant chess pieces for students to use during recess.
The Colorado district took a different approach than states with phone ban mandates. With no statewide policy in Colorado, the administration asked the students to write their own phone ban policy.
“So our students were the ones who said, you know, ‘We’re getting distracted,’” Wendy Birhanzel, superintendent of District 2 says. People are on social media when they need to be learning. We need a policy to help us, and it’s distracting our mental health.”
The policy was put in place in August 2025, after the administration worked with legal counsel and a group of students to determine at what age a student can and cannot access their phone. The group decided that middle school students would not have access to cellphones during the day, while in high school the phone might be an instructional tool versus a distraction. For high school students, the phone is banned during instructional time unless instructed differently by the teacher or if used to assist a student with special educational needs.
The approach has worked well, according to Birhanzel.
“I will tell you, because our kids wrote the policy, delivered the policy to their peers, we don’t have many problems,” Birhanzel says.
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