LANSING, Mich. (WZMQ) – Michigan students returning to class this fall will find a new rule waiting for them. A state law that took effect this year requires every school district, intermediate school district and public school academy to adopt a policy limiting smartphone use during instructional time.
State Rep. Mark Tisdel, R-Rochester Hills, sponsored House Bill 4141, which became Public Act 2 of 2026. He said the law is often misunderstood as a blanket cell phone ban. It isn’t.
“A basic phone that has no internet connection and does not accommodate third-party applications, you make a phone call, you send a text message, you’re done, you put it away. Smartphone, you never put away because there’s so many other things you can do with it.” Tisdel said.
The law sets a floor, not a ceiling. Districts are free to adopt stricter rules than the state minimum, and Tisdel pointed to Avondale Schools’ middle school, which has run a bell-to-bell smartphone prohibition for five years, as an early data point on what stricter policies can do.
Citing testimony from an Avondale principal during committee hearings on the bill, Tisdel said, “After one year, there was an 80% reduction in fights. There was an 80% reduction in behavioral counseling referrals and disciplinary actions. There was a 100% reduction in assaults on teachers, and that was just after one year.”
The law does include required exemptions, including for medically necessary devices, school-issued tablets and laptops, special education programming, 504 and IEP accommodations, teacher-approved lesson use, and emergencies as outlined in a school’s emergency operations plan.
That last exemption was a particular concern for families in rural parts of the state, including the Upper Peninsula, where students may rely on a phone to coordinate transportation or after-school activities. Tisdel said those needs are accounted for.
Addressing that concern, Tisdel said, “The new law regulates smartphone use in school buildings, particularly during instruction time. The new law allows for basic phones to be available to students all day long.”
Because the law only sets a minimum, the specific rules students and parents will actually see this year depend on the district. Tisdel said that flexibility is intentional.
“Districts are welcoming this requirement. It now gives them a tool to put forth policies that would’ve gotten some parental pushback in the past, certainly some student pushback. And now they can just say, it’s the law.”
Every district and public school academy is required to post its wireless communications device policy on its website.
