Kansas bell-to-bell device ban could force Lawrence schools to revise policy

Lawrence schools may have to rewrite a policy they approved only last winter, after Kansas lawmakers imposed a tougher statewide rule that reaches deeper into the school day than the district’s current approach.

House Bill 2299 required public schools and accredited private schools to keep personal electronic devices turned off and out of reach from the first bell until dismissal, including lunch and passing periods. The law, approved by Gov. Kelly on March 19, 2026, also covered cellphones, smartwatches, earbuds and similar devices, with only narrow exceptions for medical needs, disability accommodations and approved individualized education plan circumstances. It went further still by barring school employees from using social media to directly communicate with students for official school purposes.

That puts Lawrence Public Schools on a collision course with a policy the Lawrence Board of Education approved on Dec. 9, 2024, and began on Jan. 6, 2025. Under the district’s current rules, elementary and middle school students are largely expected to keep devices turned off and stored out of sight, but high school building administrators can allow phones during non-instructional lunch and passing periods. The new state mandate would eliminate that exception and require a true bell-to-bell ban across Lawrence schools.

The practical question is how the district would make that happen. A March 2026 Journal-World report said the state law did not provide money for phone-storage systems, and one option under discussion was a fabric pouch that could only be opened with a special device, at about $30 per student. The Kansas Division of the Budget estimated that would cost about $13.4 million statewide if every student received one. The law also protected districts from liability if a phone was lost or damaged while in district possession, and it required schools to give students access to a school-owned phone or other device so they could contact parents.

State education officials have been building the case for tighter device rules since 2024. In July of that year, the Kansas State Board of Education asked Dr. Randy Watson to form a Blue-Ribbon Task Force on Student Screen Time, and on Dec. 10, 2024, the board accepted its final recommendations. KSDE later told board members that 25 states had already enacted laws or policies to ban or limit cellphones in classrooms, while 66.5% of Kansas districts said they already had a bell-to-bell ban and 77.8% said high school students could still use devices during passing periods or lunch.

For Lawrence, the change would be more than a policy edit. It would require teachers to police phones from the start of the day, students to lock them away for the entire school day, and parents to adjust to a campus where the old lunch-hour and hallway exceptions no longer apply.