On January 8th, 2026, in the final days of his term, New Jersey governor Phil Murphy signed a bill banning cell phone use in K-12 public schools, joining 36 states that have done the same.
The bill calls for a “bell-to-bell” policy, where phone use is prohibited from the moment school starts to the moment it ends, and requires statewide and local education boards to establish guidelines that align with the bill’s policy which all public schools, including Wayne Hills, are to adopt from the 2026-2027 school year on.
Students at Wayne Hills are understandably perturbed. Though graduating this year, senior Santiago Gonzalez is “not in favor of [the policy], as in school we already put our phones in pockets for many teachers. I also use it, for example, for texts or family emergencies or as a faster and more reliable alternative to slow Chromebooks for school assignments online.”
Students at Ramsey High School, which implemented its phone ban last year, shared initially that same disappointment. Now, over a year into the ban, some of its students, such as Massimo Randazzo, began to notice how, instead of being buried in their screens, students at Ramsey High School began talking and engaging with one another—like how they might have done before the prevalence of phones, before the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic.
New Jersey’s phone ban also will work to prevent social media drama inching into schools and help mediate the phone addictions many high schoolers have fallen into. Santiago, however, pushes back on this rhetoric, arguing that “Socialization-wise, I see almost every person talking to their friends and socializing during lunch. For all these reasons, from my experience, I don’t think phones are negatively affecting students academically and socially and are more beneficial than harmful in schools.”
Democrat Mikie Sherrill, who ran for and won the governor’s office last November, backed the phone-banning bill, while Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who opposed Sherrill’s run, argued for local districts to decide on the allowance or prohibition of phones. With Sherrill’s rise, despite how Wayne Hills students may feel, it seems unlikely that the upcoming ban on phones will be reversed any time soon.
