California AB 3216 takes effect July 1, 2026

The compliance platform for phone-free schools.

Soft lockdown, hard evidence. Meet your state's phone-free-school mandate with measurable compliance — no plastic pouches, no $30-per-student hardware. Built for BYOD schools in all 41 states with phone laws.

Free tier up to 250 students · iOS + Android · FERPA-ready

pfsm.app/dashboard
Lincoln High — Today
School day: 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM · Live
847
Students
782
Compliant
62
Offline
3
Alerts
Compliance rate
92%Today
Hourly presence
Ready for states that have passed laws
CALIFORNIA NEW YORK FLORIDA INDIANA LOUISIANA OHIO +35 MORE
🤔 The elephant in the room

Students and parents don't actually want phone-free schools.

Parents fear emergency disconnection. Students fear isolation. Teachers fear revolt. Schools adopt policies anyway because mandates force them to, then spend the year fighting compliance battles.

We found a better way.

PFSM gives teachers one-tap unlock for classroom activities, keeps emergency calls and parent contact always available, and replaces plastic-pouch confiscation with soft lockdown + tamper visibility. Students keep agency. Parents keep peace of mind. Schools get the compliance signal the law requires.

See how it works Talk to us
Why now

The evidence is in. So is the mandate.

41 US states have passed phone-free-school laws or policies. 28 states moved in 2025 alone. The research backs decades of consistent findings. Schools need a compliance signal, not a new pile of pouches.

41

States with phone laws

41 US states have enacted K-12 cellphone laws or policies. 33 explicitly ban or limit classroom use. Your state is likely on the list.

74%

Adults support classroom bans

Support for phone bans during class climbed from 68% to 74% year-over-year. Bipartisan, rising, durable.

$5.2M

LAUSD spent on pouches last year

One district. One year. $25-30/student for plastic bags that break. New York allocated another $13.5M in public funds.

How it works

Three steps from enrollment to compliance report.

Designed for BYOD (bring-your-own-device) schools. No hardware, no pouches, no lanyards.

01

Enroll

Teachers generate a QR code in class. Students scan with the PFSM app. Device registers in under 60 seconds — no account creation, no IT ticket.

02

Monitor

During school hours, students see a rotating compliance code teachers verify at a glance. Phones check in every 5 minutes. Tamper alerts fire within 15.

03

Report

Live admin dashboard. Per-student compliance timeline. State-mandate reports exportable in one click. Board-meeting ready.

What you get

Every signal a school needs. Nothing it doesn't.

📊

Compliance visibility, live

Real-time dashboard showing which devices are compliant, which are offline, which triggered tamper alerts. Drill into any student's timeline.

🎯

Soft lockdown, honest limits

App shields during school hours on iOS (with Apple Family Controls) + Android (via native APIs). We tell you when a student bypasses — within 15 minutes.

📱

NFC classroom tap-in

Optional cryptographic check-in at classroom doors. Yondr-style accountability without the plastic. $0.50 per NFC sticker vs. $25 per pouch.

🔑

Teacher unlock codes

Six-digit codes teachers generate on the fly to grant temporary access to specific apps — calculator for a math test, a research browser for a project.

📰

School news on the lock screen

The compliance visual doubles as your school's communication channel. Announcements, bell schedules, daily news — authored in a WYSIWYG editor.

📋

State-mandate reports

One-click exports formatted for California AB 3216, New York's Distraction-Free Schools law, Indiana HEA 1185, and every other state mandate.

The best of both worlds

Phones away by default. Available when they matter.

Phone-free doesn't mean disconnected. PFSM gives teachers control and parents peace of mind — without handing students unlimited access.

🧑‍🏫

Teachers unlock phones on-demand

Running a classroom activity that needs phones — a photo scavenger hunt, a Kahoot quiz, a calculator for a math test, a language-practice app? Teachers generate a 6-digit unlock code that grants access to specific apps for a specific duration, then auto-re-locks when time's up.

Every unlock is logged. Admins see which teachers use phones in class, which apps they unlock, and for how long — so phone-friendly pedagogy is visible and accountable.

🆘

Students keep emergency access always

911 calls, parent/guardian contacts, and location sharing are never blocked. Parents set the allowlist during enrollment. In an emergency, a student's phone works exactly the way it would without PFSM installed — no unlock code, no teacher intervention, no delay.

The #1 concern parents raise about phone-free schools is emergency contact. PFSM is built so emergency communication is the one thing that always works.

The research

The case for phone-free schools isn't close.

From London to Spain to New York State's 2025 bell-to-bell law — the data points one direction. Test scores up, anxiety down, incidents down, teacher-reported focus time up.

75% of NY schools reported improved ability to teach effectively within one semester of their 2025 law taking effect.

Read the full research
+14%
Test-score improvement for lowest-achieving students after phone bans in English schools
Beland & Murphy, LSE CEP DP-1350 (91 schools · 130,000 pupils)
4.5×
Rise in NYC cyberbullying incidents after the 2013-14 phone ban was lifted (178 → 804)
City & State NY, 2025
86%
Of principals in phone-restricted schools report improved climate, less cyberbullying, fewer incidents
RAND / JAMA, 2025
From the field

What schools that went phone-free say.

Quotes from public surveys — not paid testimonials. Every one has an official source.

High school teachers shared that students' responses to literature are deeper and more meaningful — they are seeing students actually reading and not just looking for Cliff Notes or quick answers.
Western NY district administrator
NY Governor's survey, Fall 2025
This has been a game changer. Students have their heads up and not down looking at their phones. Students are having conversations with each other!
Assistant superintendent
NY Governor's survey, Fall 2025
Schools be phone-free from bell to bell — from the morning when kids arrive to the end when they leave.
Jonathan Haidt
Social psychologist, NYU · "The Anxious Generation" (2024)
State mandates

Your deadline is closer than you think.

We track every state law so you don't have to. PFSM is built for compliance reporting from day one.

State Law Effective PFSM ready
California AB 3216 — Phone-Free School Act July 1, 2026 Ready
New York Distraction-Free Schools (FY2026 Budget) Sept 4, 2025 Ready
Indiana HEA 1185 + SB 78 (bell-to-bell expansion) July 2024; July 2026 Ready
Florida HB 379 — Technology in K-12 Schools July 2023 Ready
Louisiana SB 207 (RS §17:239) 2024-2025 SY Ready
Ohio HB 250 2025-2026 SY Ready
South Carolina Statewide policy 2024-2025 SY Ready
Virginia Executive Order 2024 Ready
+ 33 other states with restrictions · Federal UNPLUGGED Act pending
Built for everyone involved

One platform. Three perspectives.

For District Admins

Procurement-ready, mandate-ready.

Roll out in two weeks. Prove compliance in two clicks.

  • State-mandate report templates
  • SIS import + SSO/SAML
  • FERPA-compliant DPA
  • ROI calculator vs. pouches
  • Dedicated customer success
For Teachers

Zero extra work during class.

PFSM runs in the background. Your phone-free policy just works.

  • One-tap unlock codes
  • Compliance at a glance, across the room
  • Class roster with live status
  • No new dashboards to babysit
  • Emergency override always on
For Parents

Safety first. Privacy always.

Your child can always reach you. We can never read their messages.

  • 911 + parent whitelist always reachable
  • Transparent privacy policy
  • After-hours = zero monitoring
  • You can revoke access anytime
  • No content scanning, ever
Privacy by design

What we see — and what we don't.

Full transparency. If a vendor can't show you this table, ask why.

✓ What PFSM collects

  • Device check-in timestamps + battery level
  • Compliance status (compliant / offline / flagged)
  • Classroom tap-in events (opt-in)
  • Tamper detection signals (app uninstalled, VPN enabled)
  • Enrollment metadata (device model, OS version)

✕ What PFSM never collects

  • Text messages, emails, or chat content
  • Photos, videos, or media library
  • Browsing history or website visits
  • Specific app names or per-app usage time (iOS)
  • Location outside school hours
  • Contacts or call logs
Pricing

Transparent pricing. Rare in edtech. Intentional for us.

Most vendors hide pricing behind a sales call. We don't.

Free
$0
For small schools getting started.
  • Up to 250 students
  • Single school
  • Core compliance dashboard
  • Basic tamper alerts
  • Community support
Get started
District
Volume pricingStill less than a pouch
For multi-school districts. 1,000+ students.
  • Everything in Pro
  • Multi-school management
  • SSO/SAML + SIS API
  • Custom branding
  • Dedicated customer success
  • State compliance automation
Talk to us

Pouches cost $25-30 per student. Every year.

A 2,000-student school spends $50,000+ annually on plastic that tears, loses magnets, and needs constant replacement. That's LAUSD's $5.2M math, scaled down.

$25-30
Yondr · per student · per year
Less than
a pouch
PFSM · per student · per year
Contact us

Your phone-free-school mandate is coming.

California districts: July 1, 2026 is 11 weeks away. Tell us about your school or district and we'll get back within one business day.

We reply within 1 business day.