Cleveland Metropolitan School District phone policy under Ohio law, serving ~37,000 students in Cleveland. Ohio's 2025 biennial budget mandates that districts adopt bell-to-bell cellphone policies, replacing the 2024 HB 250 framework. Enforcement models, costs, and compliance for administrators.
Cleveland Metropolitan School District is a public school district headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio (Cuyahoga County), serving approximately 37,000 students across the Cleveland area. Like every district in Ohio, its cell phone rules are shaped by state law — and by how well the policy is actually enforced on each campus.
Does CMSD ban cell phones?
Yes. Ohio has a statewide bell-to-bell phone-free school law (HB 96 (2025) — biennial budget; supersedes 2024 HB 250), so every public school in the district must keep student devices off and out of reach for the entire school day — including lunch and passing periods.
For the full statute, scope, effective date, and primary sources, see our guide to Ohio's phone-free school law, part of our phone-free school laws by state directory.
Enforcing a phone-free day across Cleveland
Because Ohio's law is bell-to-bell, the hard part isn't the policy — it's enforcement and documented compliance across every campus, every period. At 37,000 students, CMSD's scale is exactly where the enforcement method matters most: a policy that works in one classroom has to work across dozens of campuses at once.
Three enforcement models districts choose from
- • Physical pouches (e.g., Yondr): a per-student cost that recurs as pouches are lost or damaged, plus daily distribution and unlocking logistics multiplied by every campus — and little compliance data.
- • District storage (lockers, caddies, classroom bins): low hardware cost, but it relies on staff to police compliance period after period.
- • Device-level software (LockedIn): OS-level locking, campus geofencing, and automated reporting — deployed identically to every school in the district with no daily logistics.
LockedIn is a software-based phone-free campus solution built for districts like CMSD. It locks student phones at the operating-system level on the devices students already carry, ties enforcement to school hours and campus geofences, and gives administrators a live dashboard plus automated compliance reports — exactly what a Ohio district needs to show enforcement is real. There's no hardware to ship, lose, or replace across Cleveland. Compare the options in our phone-free campus solution comparison or the LockedIn vs. Yondr breakdown, and model the math with our pouch-vs-software cost calculator.
What CMSD schools can do next
Any Cleveland-area school can go phone-free in under a day with LockedIn. Draft a compliant policy with our free phone-free school policy generator, then contact our team for a district quote. Title I schools in Ohio may also qualify for subsidized access.
Explore other Ohio school districts or browse phone-free school coverage by district.