When each day starts within any Oklahoma public school this year, the only ringing that will be heard is the school bell, thanks to Senate Bill 139, which passed before the start of the 2025-26 school year.
From the first bell at the start of the day until the dismissal bell, personal electronic devices – cell phones, smart watches, smart headphones, laptops, tablets and smart glasses – are prohibited. It’s a step lawmakers and school administrators are taking to keep students on track in their educational journey by reducing classroom distractions and improving student focus, academic performance and social interaction.
“Removing distractions from our school environments benefits the experiences of young people in our buildings,” says Caroline Crouch, executive director of communications for Tulsa Public Schools (TPS), “allowing them to more fully engage with their teachers, their classmates and be fully focused on their learning.”
TPS already had cell phone restrictions in place prior to SB 139 with a “phones away, just for the day” policy beginning with the 2024-25 school year.
“Because of that, there was less of a transition for our students and families,” Crouch says. “With the benefit of being one of the first districts to introduce a limit, we were already on-board with the idea and had strong practices in place.”
Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS) did not have a district-wide policy regarding smart devices prior to SB 139, but administrators have given schools an opportunity to develop their own policies and procedures that follow the new law.
“This year, we’re trying to find out what works best,” says Shaun Ross, senior executive director of support and accountability for OKCPS. “So schools have some autonomy in how they interpret the law, which says no devices from bell to bell. In some schools, that means collecting devices and others have students store them in lockers.”
Ross says consequences for phone violations are focused on teaching student responsibility.
“We’re really trying to make it where there’s some learned responsibility for students, “ he says. “Not really being punitive from the word go. There are some in-school suspension options, but we’ve set out to where this is not something that’s going to keep a kid out of school and more of an opportunity to be responsible for their devices.”
Both TPS and OKCPS have exceptions for students with medical conditions that require them to monitor their health via a smart device.
Measuring the success of the policy is an evolving process, involving surveys set up for the spring for students, parents, staff and principals to obtain quantifiable data, Ross says.
“What you can see is a reduction in the number of referrals district-wide from one year ago to today,” Ross says. “We have roughly 32,000 students and we’ve had 1,700 wireless device infractions. It’s a small number, roughly 14% of our total disciplinary actions for the year had been around wireless devices.”
So far, silencing cell phones appears to be a good decision.
“Because these practices have been ongoing within our district for well over a year now, and based on the response from our community,” Crouch says, “we believe that reducing distractions during the school day continues to have an overall positive impact on our district.”
