As of Friday, all Oregon school districts are supposed to have an adopted policy banning cellphones during the school day.
Gov. Tina Kotek signed an executive order in July requiring Oregon school districts to enact bans on student cellphone use during the school day. The governor’s order requires a “bell-to-bell” or all-day ban, but policy details are up to the individual districts.
Reactions to the ban have been mixed. Some students don’t seem to care, while others actively disagree that it’s helping.
It takes extra time, some students at Grant High School in Portland pointed out when their ban started last year, to get in and out of school if they have to have an administrator lock and unlock their Youndr pouches, for example.
Students in Springfield are learning how the rule’s nuances and exceptions can play out, like how it feels to be a student with a medically approved reason to have their phone when others don’t.
District administrators in the Phoenix Talent School District have worried about the ban negatively impacting students’ health by pushing them to go off campus at lunch.
Meanwhile, some students and teachers agree that classes are more focused and social.
Empty cellphone pouches in a Harriet Tubman Middle School math classroom in Portland, Ore., Aug. 26, 2025. Following the Portland School District’s new cellphone policy, students have expressed mixed feelings about whether it will have a positive impact on their school environment.
Morgan Barnaby / OPB
Under the executive order, district policies must specify how personal electronic devices will be stored during the school day. The policies also have to spell out how school personnel should respond if a student violates the ban.
The order prohibits school administrators from punishing a student in a way that results in lost instructional time, such as a suspension or expulsion.
To the point made by a student in Springfield, the order does allow some students to use devices, including if cellphones are needed for medical reasons or to support students whose individualized education programs call for smart devices.
Every district was supposed to adopt a policy by Oct. 31, and the policies must be in full effect no later than Jan. 1.
Related: Springfield schools went cellphone-free ahead of the statewide deadline. Here’s how it’s going
Liz Merah, the communications director for the Oregon Department of Education, said the state agency has done a cursory review of district policies across the state to confirm districts are working with their school boards to adopt policies.
ODE will begin a full review process next week, she said, and will continue to reach out to districts to offer guidance, technical assistance and additional resources.
Many districts already had policies in place or developed new policies by the start of the school year. Anecdotally, Merah said on Friday, about two-thirds of districts have begun to implement the restriction.
Middle school students eat lunch on their first day at Harriet Tubman Middle School in Portland, Ore., Aug. 26, 2025.
Morgan Barnaby / OPB
ODE has released a toolkit of resources. Merah said the agency will continue to field technical questions from districts, but the overwhelming majority of feedback the agency is receiving from school leaders is “very positive.”
“In a recent EO Office Hours call, for example,” she shared in an email to OPB, “a high school principal stated that they believe ‘this is one of the best things that the state of Oregon could have possibly done for the mental health and welfare of our kids in their learning environment.’”
Several arguments for and against the ban have been made in recent months.
Proponents of the effort argue that removing cellphones and other smart devices from schools, even during passing and lunch periods, helps students academically, mentally and socially.
Some opponents worry the executive order supersedes individual districts’ control of daily operations, with no state funding to implement it.
Related: Gov. Kotek issues executive order banning cellphones during school hours
And some parents have expressed concern that the ban will make it more difficult to contact their children in the event of an emergency at school — an argument that resurfaced following deadly school shootings in other parts of the country at the beginning of the school year.
That is a concern for students as well, as a recent survey in Salem-Keizer Public Schools found.
Salem-Keizer, which already has a policy in place across schools this term, has gathered feedback on its Personal Electronic Device Policy Impact survey from nearly 7,000 middle and high school students this fall.
The preliminary results show that a little over half of the students had either a neutral or positive view of the cellphone ban’s impact overall. But about three out of four students — 75% — are concerned about not being able to contact their family in an emergency during the school day.
