Schools get federal funding to test phone-free classrooms—with parental say.
S. 404 — Focus on Learning Act · Filed by Tom Cotton (R-AR) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 5, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill directs the Surgeon General to study how mobile devices affect student learning, mental health, and behavior in schools over two years, and establishes a $5 million pilot program awarding grants to school districts that voluntarily create phone-free school environments by storing student devices in secure containers during school hours. Schools participating must notify parents 30 days before applying, allow exemptions for health monitoring and students with disabilities, and maintain communication systems for emergencies.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a voluntary, federally-funded pilot program to test phone-free school environments while collecting data on student outcomes. It is research-driven and permissive, not prescriptive or restrictive.
What the text implies
- Pilot data may inform future state/local mandates on phone policies, shifting from voluntary to compulsory restrictions on student device use.
- Exemptions for health monitoring and disability use create administrative burden on schools to verify and track medical necessity claims.
- Study results could influence school discipline policies and parental rights regarding device access during emergencies or welfare checks.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill funds voluntary school choice on phone policies with robust parental notification and exemptions for health/disability needs, while generating evidence on student outcomes. No citizen rights are restricted; schools and families decide participation, and the study may inform future policy with empirical data.
Who stands to gain
- school districts and local educational agencies (grant recipients)
- manufacturers of secure storage containers and lockers
Named in the bill
Surgeon General, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Education, local educational agencies, elementary and secondary schools, students with disabilities, English learners
Where it stands
4 cosponsors: 2 Democrats, 2 Republicans.
- Feb 5, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Feb 5, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $2,200,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 15 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Tom Cotton, the sponsor, reported $1,292,206 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Association of Home Builders — $2,150,000 on 2 filings
- Internet Works Association — $50,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (5,470 characters) on May 21, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Schools get federal funding to test phone-free classrooms—with parental say.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s404 Report an error
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