2025 Tennessee Educator Survey Snapshot: Cell Phones in Middle and High Schools

The 2025 Tennessee Educator Survey Snapshots offer quick, accessible insights from educators on some of the most important issues in our schools—including artificial intelligence, cell phone policies, student discipline, match curriculum and supports, career and technical education, early career teachers, and teacher evaluation and retention. These one-pagers highlight what teachers are seeing and experiencing right now, providing valuable perspective to inform conversations about policy and practice across the state.

• Key Insight #1: Most high school leaders report having policies that allow for cell phone use outside of class time.
• Key Insight #2: Most high school teachers say that student cell phone use is a disruption to learning and contributes to cheating, and few say that students having cell phones improves school safety.