The Iowa Legislature passed and Gov. Kim Reynolds signed legislation at the end of April to require schools to adopt policies on cellphones, encouraging schools to restrict their use in learning environments.
Public school districts, accredited nonpublic schools and other schools in Iowa were required to create or update policies regarding limiting the usage of personal electronic devices during instructional time.
Policies were to follow a set of guidelines and could be modeled after a base model policy the Iowa Department of Education created, but the school or district policies are allowed to be stricter.
The policies had to identify technology used for educational purposes, identify methods that parents can communicate with students during school hours or in case of emergency, outline how personal devices will be stored and discipline associated with violations of the policy.
Exceptions were allowed for students who require access to devices for reasons linked to physical or mental health, emergency situations, and for students with individualized education programs or accommodations. For example, a student who monitors a medical device using their cellphone would likely be permitted to do so in the classroom.
The Nonpareil contacted the Council Bluffs, Lewis Central, Treynor and Underwood community school districts to see what cellphone policies are in place for the 2025-26 school year.
COUNCIL BLUFFS
The Council Bluffs Community School District is requiring students to place all cellphones, tablets, earbuds or AirPods on silent or for the devices to be turned off and put away.
Any wearable devices, such as an Apple Watch, are still allowed but must be set to “do not disturb.”
A message sent to parents states that “the goal is to create a focused and productive learning environment for all students.”
Students in the middle and high school are allowed to use their devices during passing periods as well as breakfast and lunch. Teachers are able to allow the usage of devices for instructional purposes.
Elementary students are required to keep devices put away during the entire school day.
Students who violate the policy will face an escalating scale of consequences with the first step being asked to place the device in a designated location in the classroom or in the students backpack.
LEWIS CENTRAL
The Lewis Central Community School District had to update its high school policy to match state guidelines, but its middle school policy remained the same.
Students at Lewis Central Middle School are required to keep electronic devices put away in their lockers for the school day. High school students can have their phones but may not use them during academic time.
Lewis Central Superintendent Brent Hoesing said teachers had been allowed to have individual policies for their classrooms, but the new district policy has taken that out of their hands.
“We're expecting our high school students to comply,” Hoesing said. “They can have their phone on them if they’d like or if they need to leave it in their locker they can.”
The only expectation is that they are not on the devices during class. Hoesing said that the response has been positive.
“We actually had a great response,” Hoesing said. "Teachers were very happy with the policy. They felt like it eliminated a lot of issues for them in the classroom."
The principal at Lewis Central High School also received positive feedback from students, who said it was nice to be able to talk to their friends and end the day with a full phone battery, according to Hoesing.
TREYNOR
The Treynor Community School District's high schoolers face the biggest change out of the buildings this year.
Treynor’s old policy allowed high school students to have their cellphones with them and left restrictions up to individual teachers. Now, students arerequired to turn them over at the beginning of class.
“The way our policy runs right now is, as soon as they walk in, every teacher has a pocket chart, and kids are putting them up in the pocket chart, and they're not allowed to access them until the end of period,” Treynor High School Rick Nickerson told The Nonpareil.
As for the middle school students, there will be no change as they have always been required to keep cellphones in lockers for the day.
Even with the change, Nickerson says he doesn’t see any challenges arising.
“We're pretty fortunate that our kids do a pretty good job of following directions. We rarely have a lot of misuse of the cellphone," Nickerson said. "I think it's easier when everybody else is doing it. If you're the one person that's outside the norm that's not doing it, it makes it easier to be like, 'Oh, we should probably all get on the same page.'”
UNDERWOOD
The Underwood Community School District was fortunate in that its previous cellphone policy fit with the state requirements.
“The first thing that we did was we compared our policy that we had already in place, and then we compared that with the new legislation,” Superintendent Andy Irwin said. “When we started putting it together, we found out that we really didn't have to do as much change as maybe initially thought.”
Underwood’s policy is that high school students must place their cellphones in either a pocket or bin upon entry to the classroom and may retrieve the device on the way out.
High schoolers are allowed to use cellphones at lunch or during passing periods. Middle schoolers must keep their cellphones in their lockers.
Irwin said that a lot of teachers already had policies in place for students to put up their cellphones upon entering the classroom, so there was not a lot of change for most students.
The biggest change for students was restrictions during study hall periods.
“We make them understand that, really, this is the instructional time. It's a distraction for you, and really, we want you to get the most out of the instructional time that you can and really the only way that we can do that is to ensure that you're not utilizing your cell phone,” Irwin said.
Students who violate the policy will face an escalating scale of disciplinary actions. However, Irwin says he doesn’t anticipate having any large problems with students following the policy.
© 2025 The Daily Nonpareil, Council Bluffs, Iowa. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
