What every state's school phone law says about emergencies

We read the official text of every statewide school phone law, executive order and state board rule in the U.S., plus D.C. and Puerto Rico, and pulled out the exact emergency wording. Each row links to the official source. Download the full dataset as a CSV, including the verbatim quotes, other exceptions and private school coverage.

Last checked: October 23, 2026. This page is a plain-language summary, not legal advice. Your district's own policy can add to what the state requires.

Key findings

• • 45 jurisdictions have an enacted statewide measure: 43 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico. Most are statutes. Hawaii uses a Board of Education policy, Oregon an executive order and South Carolina a budget proviso with a state board model policy.
• • 26 of the 45 name emergencies as an exception to the phone rule. That is 25 states plus Puerto Rico.
• • Of those 26, 19 require or protect emergency use outright, for example Louisiana ("Nothing in this Section shall prohibit the use and operation by any person, including students, ... in the event of an emergency").
• • 2 tie it to a plan or policy: Ohio allows use if the building's emergency management plan permits it, and New Jersey requires the policy to address emergencies.
• • 5 make it optional ("may"): Hawaii, Illinois, Missouri, New York and Oklahoma.
• • 17 have no emergency exception for students: 16 states and D.C. Several of them handle emergencies through the school instead. Georgia requires the policy to "facilitate all emergency communication through school emergency communication management systems". Kansas and North Dakota require a school telephone for students to reach parents.
• • 2 are unclear. Colorado lets boards "consider" emergency use, and Texas requires use when "necessary to comply with a health or safety requirement imposed by law or as part of the district's or school's safety protocols."
• • Maryland removed its emergency exception before passage. The bill's "during an emergency event, if expressly authorized by an administrator" exception was struck from the enacted chapter.
• • Arkansas and Missouri define "emergency" and list an active shooter alongside fire, tornado or earthquake, evacuation and medical emergencies.
• • Who decides varies: the superintendent in Indiana, the teacher in North Carolina, the school's emergency operations plan in Michigan and Ohio, and staff supervision and prior authorization in Puerto Rico.
• • Private schools are rarely covered. Kansas (accredited nonpublic schools) and Vermont (approved independent schools) apply their rules to private schools. Pennsylvania's bill would too, if signed.
• • Not yet law: Pennsylvania SB 1014 was presented to the Governor on October 22, 2026. Massachusetts S.2581 is in conference committee. Connecticut, Mississippi, Montana and South Dakota have no statewide law. Washington's 2026 law orders a study only.

State-by-state table

Short version below. The CSV has the verbatim emergency wording, other exceptions and private school coverage for every row. Download the dataset (CSV). Free to reuse with credit to LockedIn (lockedinapp.co), CC BY 4.0.

Column headings sort the table. We have not confirmed Puerto Rico's effective date, and its emergency quote comes from a scanned OCR copy of the official text, so its accents may differ.

How we built this

• • Scope: every enacted statewide statute, executive order or state board rule limiting student phone use in K-12 schools, as of October 23, 2026. We started from the NCSL enacted-legislation table, the 2026 JAMA Pediatrics review and our own state law pages, then confirmed each against the official text.
• • "Yes" means the official text names emergencies as a situation where students may use a phone. This includes cases where the law lets districts choose. "Rule strength" shows whether it is required, conditional or optional.
• • Quotes are verbatim from the official legislature, code, governor or board source linked in each row. Where an enrolled bill shows strikethroughs, we read the page images to confirm what was cut.
• • Dates: effective dates and deadlines are from the enacting text or our state law pages (last reviewed October 2026). District deadlines vary, so check your district's policy.

Emergencies and phone storage

Many schools pair a phone policy with a way to get phones back to students fast if something goes wrong. LockedIn's Emergency Mode reaches every phone on campus at once: students can call 911 and family, the school decides whether texting opens too, and each student taps I'm safe or I need help. We're working with schools all across the country.