As students return to school, the leaders of Colorado’s K-12 districts are considering how they might limit cellphone use in schools — including whether to ban the devices outright — to meet a 2026 deadline set by a newly enacted state law.
Such restrictions have grown in popularity nationwide as more research shows phones and social media negatively affect students’ mental health and academic outcomes.
But Denver-area districts have been slow to ban phones from the classroom, with educators saying they can be both a distraction and an educational tool depending on how they’re used.
“There are a lot of ways (a ban) can go right and there are a lot of ways it can go wrong,” Denver Public Schools Deputy Superintendent Tony Smith said. “…We want to use technology, but also we have to reinforce soft skills in a way that kids can be successful.”
DPS leaders are likely to introduce a new cellphone policy to the school board by the second semester of the current academic year, he said.
House Bill 25-1135, passed by state lawmakers in April and signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis, requires Colorado school districts to adopt policies by July 1, 2026, that regulate how students can use cellphones during the school day.
The new law does not outright ban or restrict phones in classrooms or school buildings. Instead, it allows districts to decide whether to place limitations — if any — on phones and determine what possible restrictions might look like.
So far, DPS — Colorado’s largest district — has let its nearly 200 schools implement their own cellphone rules. Most allow some level of use, but Marie L. Greenwood Early-8 and Beach Court Elementary have prohibited students from using their cellphones on campus during the school day for the last two years, Smith said.
DPS leaders, including Superintendent Alex Marrero, are undecided about whether to continue to let school administrators create their own cellphone regulations or establish a single policy for the entire district.
“It’s very difficult for us to do it successfully,” Marrero said of a districtwide cellphone ban.
Not everyone in the community supports a districtwide policy and parents would be concerned if they can’t reach their children during the school day, said Marrero, who also questioned whether a ban would actually reduce the overall amount of time students spend on their phones.
“It’s not as simple as putting your cellphone away,” he said.
Englewood Schools also plans to have its Board of Education adopt a phone policy by March.
The school board discussed the timeline during a public meeting Tuesday, but didn’t delve into the specifics of what such a policy might look like. During the meeting, Englewood Superintendent Joanna Polzin handed each board member a copy of Jonathan Haidt’s book “The Anxious Generation” to help them prepare for the district’s upcoming discussions regarding a new cellphone policy.
The book details how anxiety and depression increased in adolescents along with their access to smartphones and social media platforms.
‘Call for action’
Nationally, cellphone bans have picked up steam in recent years — as has support for them — because of growing concern about the mental health of children and teens.
Advocates of such regulation point to rising rates of cyberbullying, anxiety, depression and eating disorders in adolescents as the reason why K-12 schools should become phone-free.
At least 26 states have passed laws regulating cellphone use in schools, and eight more have rules or recommend that districts implement such policies. New York City’s public schools will start banning cellphones next month.
A Pew Research Center study published in July found that 74% of American adults approve of cellphone bans in middle- and high-school classrooms, which is up from 68% of the people who endorsed such regulations a year ago.
Schools are on the frontlines of the youth mental health crisis and their moves to restrict students’ cellphone use come after hundreds of districts nationwide — including DPS and Jeffco Public Schools — sued social media companies two years ago, alleging apps such as Instagram and TikTok contribute to the poor mental health of their pupils.
School districts aren’t alone in their concern about the harm phones and social media might be having on American adolescents. Last year, the former surgeon general called for a warning label on social media platforms — akin to those found on cigarette packs — and for schools to become “phone-free experiences.”
“When you look at cellphones contributing to youth mental health harms, you have to ask what are the tools we have,” said Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.
Colorado’s new law requiring districts to create cellphone policies is a “call for action,” he said.
“I’m confident that this state law is providing an appropriate nudge” for districts to enact cellphone policies, Weiser said.
The attorney general’s office also gave out more than $270,000 earlier this year to districts and schools, including Englewood Schools, to test cellphone policies that limit students’ use of the devices.
Teens spend an average of 1.5 hours on smartphones during the school day, mostly for messaging and emailing, as well as video streaming and Instagram, according to a study published by JAMA Pediatrics in April.
The reason why smartphones and social media have led to an increase in mental health illnesses in adolescents is debated, said Dr. Lauren Henry, a psychologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado.
But, she said, children have anxiety about being compared and judged online.
Children and teens who just scroll through social media apps instead of engaging with them also have more negative impacts than those who use the sites as a form of communication with others, Henry said.
Research is also starting to show that cellphone restrictions don’t just improve students’ mental health, but also their academic performance, she said.
Where districts stand on cellphone bans
Cellphone bans, if a district has one, vary across the state — and often by school.
Districts such as the Boulder Valley School District prohibit students from using their phones the entire school day. Others limit phone access during class, but allow students to use their devices during lunch or in passing periods.
Boulder Valley adopted one of Colorado’s first — and strictest — cellphone policies in 2019 when it banned elementary and middle-school students from using their phones during school hours.
The district expanded the so-called bell-to-bell ban to high schools last year.
To help students adapt to not having their phones, Boulder Valley schools have set up activities, such as Jenga sets and pingpong tables, that pupils can play with in between classes and during lunch. These activities not only keep students off their phones, but also help them interact with one another, said Robbyn Fernandez, the district’s assistant superintendent of schools.
“Even with all of those positive things, it’s still an ongoing adjustment,” said Boulder Valley’s Southwest Network executive director Neil Anderson.
Charlie Taylor and Macy Larson, juniors at Lafayette’s Centaurus High School, are regulars at the two new pingpong tables added to the school’s student center.
“It was super quiet in here when everyone was on their phones,” Charlie said. “It’s made this place a lot better. It has helped us connect more as a school.”
Macy said she’s met more classmates playing pingpong, including students in other grades.
“People just come and hang out,” she said.
Still, they said, it was a challenge to break the habit of checking their phones when the ban was put in place in January, making them appreciate that administrators started with warnings before progressing to confiscating phones. The one thing that’s still tricky to manage is making plans for lunch with friends when they want to go off campus. While email is an option, they said, checking for an email on a laptop can’t replace the ease of pinging their friends with a quick group text.
On the plus side, they said a schoolwide ban makes it easier to focus on school work. Before, Macy said, it was easier to get away with checking her phone in class, especially with more lenient teachers who didn’t always enforce the phone rules.
“You would finish an assignment, and you would just go on your phone,” she said. “I can’t do that now. I get more work done. I make more connections in class with my teachers and the other students.”
At St. Vrain Valley Schools, Superintendent Jackie Kapushion said the district started the year by providing consistent guidance to schools that students need to put away their phones during class. The district still allows students to use their devices during passing periods and lunch.
With the passage of the new state law, Kapushion said, she plans to bring a formal policy to the school board in the next couple of months that bans cellphones in the classroom.
She said students told her they need access to their phones because that’s how they schedule their time and communicate.
“We’re going to strike a balance,” Kapushion said. “We have to co-exist with technology. We’re going to invite students to do the right thing. Most of the time, our students step up and make thoughtful decisions.”
But Christina Edstrom — with the support of her daughter, a sophomore at Longmont’s Silver Creek High School — wants St. Vrain Valley to implement a bell-to-bell phone ban.
“Our kids would really like to see the entire school day without phones,” she said. “If everybody who feels socially uncomfortable is on their phone, it makes connecting socially a lot more difficult.”
Two of the state’s largest districts — Jeffco Public Schools and the Douglas County School District — said they are working to comply with the new law, but didn’t have details on what type of cellphone regulations might be considered.
Jeffco Public Schools doesn’t have a districtwide phone policy, but lets school leaders determine if they want to impose restrictions. The Douglas County School District’s current policy was last updated in 2013 and permits phones in classrooms with teacher or administrator approval.
Last year, Jeffco began studying how the district’s schools handle cellphones on campus as part of its efforts to draft a districtwide policy. The district plans to present a policy for the school board to vote on in the spring, with the expectation that it will be implemented at the start of the 2026-27 academic year, according to a June presentation.
“We’re really going slow to make sure we get it right here in Jeffco,” Superintendent Tracy Dorland said.
‘Is it a tool or is it a distraction?’
District leaders, teachers and students said banning cellphones isn’t as simple as it seems, as phones are prevalent in society and can be used to engage students in lessons, such as when they need a calculator or to complete a survey.
“Is it a tool or is it a distraction?” said Rob Gould, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. “…You have to figure out ways to help kids understand it’s a tool and it can be a dangerous tool. It’s like driving a car.”
Vanessa Tao, 19, said that when she attended Columbine High School near Littleton, students were required to put their phones in a holder before class, but were allowed to use the devices during passing periods and lunch.
The school later loosened its ban slightly so that students could use their phones in class when needed, such as for scanning documents, she said.
“Banning phones completely would actually be a hindrance to students’ learning,” said Tao, who graduated in 2024 and is a member of Children’s Hospital Colorado’s Youth Council on Mental Health.
Marrero, DPS’s superintendent, said one challenge in implementing a ban stems from parents’ concerns about what might happen during emergencies — such as school shootings.
“I know those parents are going to have a lot of issues of not being able to connect with their child,” he said.
Marrero said the bingeing adolescents do on social media apps such as TikTok is “toxic.”
“They’re not engaging in anything physical,” he said. “…It also causes a tremendous amount of behavior, discipline and bullying in our schools. The issues are significant.”
But Marrero also noted that students’ cellphone use happens mostly outside of school buildings.
“If we stop (cellphones) from bell to bell, I fear there will be bingeing happening outside of school,” he said.
Tao, now a sophomore at Brown University in Rhode Island, said she spent more time on her phone in the evenings after high school because she didn’t have as much access to the device during the day and felt disconnected and isolated from her peers.
“We grew up constantly connected to each other and the internet,” she said.
The phone ban helped Tao become more mindful about her social media use, but she said such prohibitions are “sticking a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.” Instead, she said, schools need to help students learn healthy phone usage and teach social media literacy.
“It just depends on how you use it and your mindset… on technology,” Tao said.
Daily Camera staff writer Amy Bounds and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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