Oct. 27, 2025 – Hoover, Ala. – The nonprofit National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) issued a statement today that supports school policies and legislation that bar cell phone access for K-12 students during instructional time. The following statement may be attributed to NASRO executive director Mo Canady:
Access to phones during the school day reduces student safety in normal and especially emergency situations. During normal days, phone access promotes social media drama and cyberbullying and makes it easier for students to plan physical altercations, all of which hinder student safety.
During school emergencies, worried parents understandably want desperately to contact their children and be reassured that the children are safe. The risks posed by phone access during school emergencies are even greater, however, than during normal times.
During an emergency such as a school shooting, students must be completely focused on life-saving instructions and information provided by teachers, administrators and other officials. Phones can easily distract students from hearing, understanding and reacting appropriately to such information, even when students use the phones to communicate with parents.
Some school emergencies require students to hide in silence to avoid being targets of violence. Sounds or light from students’ phones could help an assailant locate potential victims.
School administrators and responders often rely on cell phone networks to facilitate safe responses to school emergencies. Hundreds of students using phones simultaneously could degrade network performance and hinder essential emergency communications.
Information students communicate to parents during an emergency often prompts parents to rush to the school, creating traffic issues that hinder emergency responders, including law enforcement and EMS. Obviously, the sooner those responders arrive, the safer students will be. In addition, police could mistake a parent for an assailant if the parent tries to access the school building.
For all these reasons, NASRO strongly supports polices and legislation that ban cell phone access “bell to bell,” that is, from the beginning of the school day until dismissal.
NASRO also encourages schools to create and test emergency communication plans that make official information available to parents at the earliest possible moment.
About NASRO
NASRO is a nonprofit organization for school-based law enforcement officers, school administrators and school security/safety professionals working as partners to protect students, school faculty and staff, and the schools they attend. NASRO’s national offices are in Hoover, Alabama. The organization was established in 1991. For more information, visit www.nasro.org.
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