Kansas Governor Laura Kelly signed Senate Substitute for Substitute for House Bill 2299 on March 19, 2026, enacting a bell-to-bell ban on student personal electronic devices and a separate prohibition on school employees privately or directly communicating with students through social media platforms. The law takes effect July 1, 2026, and requires all public school districts and accredited nonpublic schools to adopt compliant policies and certify to the State Board of Education by September 1, 2026.
The law's requirements
Under the statute's new section 3, each district board and accredited nonpublic school governing authority must adopt policies that prohibit employees from privately or directly communicating with any student through social media platforms and from requiring social media use for any assignment or extracurricular activity. The law defines a social media platform as an online website or application that allows registered users to create accounts for the primary purpose of creating, sharing, or interacting with publicly viewable user-generated content. It explicitly includes Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok. Excluded from the definition are email, direct messaging services that only share messages between sender and named recipient, educational-purpose platforms, and board-approved platforms that are owned or controlled by the district, allow required user accounts, permit monitoring, archiving, retention, and auditing, are accessible to parents, and are used by employees in accordance with policy.
The statute also carves out official school purposes, defined as the broadcasting or posting of public, one-way communications about school functions, activities, or events. This does not include private communications, direct communications, or two-way communications with any student. Boards may approve a social media platform for official school purposes under subsection (b) of the same section.
District responses
Wichita Public Schools (USD 259) voted in July 2026 to adopt a bell-to-bell device ban and a policy labeled P1233 that prohibits district employees from contacting students through social media and bans teachers from requiring social media use for an assignment or activity. The policy allows employees to communicate with students through district-approved platforms that are not social media platforms, provided they comply with board policy. It specifies that official school purposes do not include comment-based conversations or any other two-way exchange of individualized messages with a student. Employees are strongly discouraged from friending or otherwise connecting with any student through a personal account. Wichita Public Schools stated in a Facebook post that because of the new law, the district can no longer respond to direct messages or comment-based conversations on its social media pages.
The Lawrence school board (USD 497) held a first reading of its social media policy on August 10, 2026, prohibiting two-way or private interactions between students and staff through social media, whether during or outside the school day. Prohibited examples include private or direct messaging, comment-based conversations, and other individualized messages. Board member Kelly Jones indicated that staff involved in clubs and activities would need to adjust how they communicate with students under the new policy. Superintendent Jeanice Swift indicated that all staff members will sign affidavits before the school year regarding the policy requirements. Board member Shannon Kimball noted that ParentSquare and email are among the approved communication tools. The policy is scheduled for final approval at the board's August 24, 2026 meeting.
National context
The device ban portion of HB 2299 places Kansas among a growing number of states that have restricted student cell phone use during school hours. According to the Kansas Health Institute, Louisiana has a law that bans student possession of devices on their person for the entire instructional day, while California, New York, and Texas have bell-to-bell policies. Colorado and Minnesota require districts to develop their own policies without specifying content. The social media prohibition on staff-student communication appears to be a less common statutory measure.
What the research says
Research on the effects of device bans on student outcomes is limited, particularly for K-12 settings. The Kansas Health Institute cited a 2018 study involving 118 upper-level college students that was described as one of the first to establish a causal relationship between electronic device use during class and exam performance. That study found that even students who did not use devices themselves performed worse when attending classes where device use was permitted. The study's applicability to the Kansas bell-to-bell ban is limited because it involved college students, not K-12 students.
Early survey data from educators in states that have implemented bell-to-bell device bans has been cautiously positive, according to the Kansas Health Institute. Teachers in several states reported improvements in student engagement and classroom behavior. These findings are based on preliminary survey data rather than controlled studies. The Kansas State Board of Education formed a Blue Ribbon Task Force on Student Screen Time in August 2024 and approved its recommendations in December 2024, before the issue moved to the legislature, the Kansas Health Institute reported.