During this year’s legislative session, Utah legislators passed Senate Bill 69 — a bill that establishes the default standard device use from just being prohibited during instructional time to being prohibited throughout the school day.

During a ceremonial bill signing event on April 9 at Valley Elementary School in Eden, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed several education bills from the 2026 legislative session, including SB69. The event was attended by several students, teachers, school faculty and legislators.

Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, who was the sponsor of the bill in the Senate, spoke about the bill during the ceremony.

“Cellphones are great and I needed this to get here today because I’ve never been to Eden,” he said, holding his own phone up for the students. “This told me all of the different state highways and local roads to take to the school. It knew exactly where it was and it knew exactly what time I would get here — except that I drove fairly fast and I got here a few minutes early.”

However, he said that, while the cellphone is a useful tool in some instances, it can be the opposite in others.

“The device is also really harmful,” he said. “It’s so much more than a phone. These devices can be really beneficial, even in schools, but when unregulated and uncontrolled, they will damage your brain, damage your friendships, damage your education. That’s why Senate Bill 69 is so important.”

While it has often been referred to as a bell-to-bell “ban” on cellphone use in schools, SB69 has several exceptions where the use of cellphones is allowed during the school day, including:

• “to respond to an imminent threat to the health or safety of an individual;
• “to respond to a school-wide emergency;
• “to use the SafeUT Crisis Line described in Section 53H-4-210;
• “for a student’s IEP or Section 504 accommodation plan; or
• “to address a medical necessity”

Fillmore said there are even exceptions allowing for cellphones to be used in a productive way during class.

“It removes them from schools, except to the degree that schools decide this is where it could be helpful,” he said. “I spoke to an art teacher who wants to allow cellphones in her classroom because, in art, she needs students to be able to have a camera to take pictures of things that, then, they can translate into other media. That’s a great use for such a device.”

However, he said that most uses of cellphones just don’t conform with what is needed for a cohesive learning environment.

“For the most part, when these devices are used in schools, they are used in the ways that harm friendships and relationships, that harm the development of kids’ brains and skills and that harm the quality of their education,” he said. “I’m very happy to have Senate Bill 69. I’m glad that this empowers school districts and charter schools to find out where the appropriate uses of them are.”

Fillmore said it’s ultimately best to leave the bill as it is going forward.

“My advice — if I were the king of education or the superintendent of a school district or the person who got to make all of those decisions — it to leave the bill alone,” he said. “It is much better to remove these from classrooms and not have them cause that damage to kids.”

In some cases, there will be little change for a school district.

Among them is the Ogden School District, where district Director of Communications Jer Bates told the Standard-Examiner they have had similar policies in place for some time.

“The new legislation about cellphone restrictions has not been a significant factor for us,” he said. “We already had policies in place at our schools so our students, educators and families are already accustomed to restrictions.”

Though signed March 19, the bill takes effect on July 1, 2026.