As the bell rings to signal the end of class, students at Pleasure Ridge Park High School in Louisville flood the hallways. As students talk to each other on their way to lunch, a security guard stands by. He’s on the lookout for phones.
One student walks by with earbuds in. “Take your earbuds out,” the security guard tells him. The student complies.
About 30 seconds later, a student walks by holding his phone.
“Put your phone away!” the security guard tells him. The student obeys.
Kentucky’s cellphone ban bill has been in effect for a year now; it forbids students from using cellphones during instructional time. A similar law goes into effect in Indiana in July.
Myron Montgomery, assistant principal of the Business and Communications Academy within Pleasure Ridge, said in addition to having security guards and teachers looking out for phones in the halls, if a teacher catches a student on a phone in the classroom, they fill out a Google Form to document the incident. A security guard brings the student to the assistant principal for a conversation. Consequences depend on the number of times the student has been found in violation of the rule. It could be one class period of in-school suspension or multiple days.
At the beginning of the school year, administrators collected between 70 and 80 phones a day. Now, they collect 15 to 20.
“We attacked it with fidelity,” Montgomery said. “…If they violate it, consistently give them the consequence until they realize that this is not only a school policy, but it is now a state law, and we're going to follow it, and this just teaches responsibility and accountability to the students.”
The school makes an announcement every morning reminding students they cannot have their phones out and also provides every student with a pouch where they can lock their phones for the day. After school, they unlock the pouch by tapping on a base at exit points.
Without their phones, Montgomery said, students are more engaged in the classroom. They’re learning more and talking with each other more.
“Attitudes are a lot better,” he said. “There are a lot more conversations. You see a lot more smiling faces. You see students doing things that you haven't seen them do in a long time. They're playing cards, they're playing checkers.”
Montgomery said Indiana could see similar results if it takes the right steps. The key to making it work, he said, is consistency.
Violations will be “heavy on the first month, month and a half, but then after that, it will calm down, as long as you are consistent, as long as you follow through,” he said, “and as long as students know that everyone in the building is going to follow through and be rolling in the same direction.”
A statement from the Indiana Department of Education said it is working on creating guidance to help schools implement new rules. Schools must adopt policies in accordance with the law by July 1.
In the classroom
In the minutes leading up to the start of the school day at 7:45 a.m., Erich Nolan’s science classroom at Bloomington High School North is silent. Many students sit on their phones, waiting for the bell to ring.
Nolan said it’s more common for students to be on their phones rather than talk to each other. He’s “guardedly optimistic” the new law will address the issue.
Senate Bill 78, which passed earlier this year, does not allow students to access personal wireless devices, such as phones, smartwatches and tablets, during the school day. Devices would either need to be left at home or stored in an inaccessible place during the day. The bill builds on Indiana’s existing cellphone ban, which requires students to put away phones during instructional time.
“My great hope is that my classroom is louder before class starts, because students are interacting more,” Nolan said, “and the lunchroom’s a little louder, and people are actually making those important one-to-one connections, or finding new friends. That’s a big part of what we’re doing in our teenage years.”
Aside from being a barrier to social interaction, Nolan said phones have also distracted kids from doing work in class. According to a survey from the Indiana State Teachers Association, 85 percent of educators reported that they struggle to keep students focused in class due to technology.
Even though Nolan expects students to put their phones away during class, they can still become a distraction from learning when they’re just in a pocket.
“If they're [students] focused on, say, learning how to balance chemical equations, right?” he said. “And in the midst of learning this for the first time, they hear that noise, they hear that notification, maybe they steal a glance at it or something. I think even just momentary loss of focus is potential learning loss, right? And it has to be made up at a later time.”
One policy option under the new bill would direct schools to adopt a secure storage policy where devices are stored and inaccessible during the day and are returned at dismissal. One way to do that could be to use special storage pouches or lockers. Nolan is concerned about how much it would cost to potentially purchase new storage pouches amid education funding cuts.
“There's no new funding for this and we're already hurting,” he said. “So I hope that we can figure it out without having to incur a bunch of additional expenses. I think that would be helpful.”
Indiana’s legislature did not provide funding for these pouches for next school year, but Indiana State Teachers Association President Jennifer Smith-Margraf said she plans to talk with lawmakers next year during the budget session about that possibility.
While the pouches weren’t cheap --- one company says it’s $25-30 each --- and students aren’t required to use them, Montgomery thinks it’s worthwhile to give them that option.
“We want to make sure that we gave students the tool,” he said. “We couldn't just come up with a policy and then not give a tool to follow the policy.”
At Pleasure Ridge, English and Journalism teacher Judy Scott-Berger said even though students hated not having their phones at first, students have become more involved in lessons. She is also moving away from students using their computers and doing more pencil and paper learning.
“They're just thinking more,” she said. “And my big thing is critical thinking. I want you to think for yourself and not use AI to think for you. And I think that's what we've gotten away from with a lot of the internet and the cell phones.”
Scott-Berger doesn’t even use her phone out of respect for the students; she thinks it’s unfair for her to do so.
A year into the ban, she sees students interacting more when she’s done teaching, rather than scrolling on their phones.
“Last year by May, they didn't even know the names of the people sitting next to them, because they were always on their phones,” she said. “And this year, they know each other's names. They talk. It's really nice to see them conversing and interacting with each other.”
Montgomery is already thinking of ways he can adjust the policy for next school year. For example, if in-school suspensions aren’t helping the repeat offenders, he’s considering creating a contract for students to leave their phone in the front office when they first get to school.
“You're giving your phone over for a certain amount of time in order to avoid a suspension, in order to avoid that distraction,” he said.
Concerns on the bill
Elijah McWilliams, a site supervisor for Extended Day at Grandview Elementary School, said he despises the new cell phone ban bill. Given rumors of Immigration and Customs Enforcement being in Bloomington, and the possibility of ICE agents going to schools, he thinks kids should have the ability to record those interactions.
“I love the idea of kids specifically having the ability to have phones on them so that they can record and keep themselves safe, especially in regards to ICE because, as we've seen online, some of the biggest defenses against their wanton violence is the people being able to show what they're doing,” McWilliams said. “It's, I think, a huge protection of all of their [kids’] rights and liberties.”
McWilliams said phones sometimes get in the way of kids doing their homework, but at times help kids complete the work. He doesn’t think taking their phones away will eliminate distractions.
“There are a lot of things fighting for their attention,” he said. “And even if you take away the phones, high schoolers have laptops. They have access to iPads, so they're going to get online and mess around no matter what. Taking away the phone just feels like backpedaling for no real benefit.”
When asked about ICE potentially coming into schools, Louisville’s Montgomery said students are not allowed to record anything in school.
“I don't think we can base a policy based off, what if this kind of thing happened, which the chances of is not zero, but it's also small compared to all the other things that students use devices to record things for,” he said.
How about during a lockdown?
At Pleasure Ridge Park High School in Louisville, Montgomery does not allow students to access their phones during a lockdown. He communicates with students about the situation on the intercom system and notifies parents. Only if students were to evacuate the school to an alternate location would he allow them to use their phones. But he wants to keep phones out of the picture as much as possible to avoid spreading misinformation.
“You don't know who they're contacting or who has access to that information that may be used in a way to harm students,” Montgomery said.
While Indiana’s bill does outline exceptions for students to use their phone, including in the case of an emergency, it does not define what an emergency is.
In the scenario that there is a school lockdown, Nolan said school policies are already in place for contacting people.
Indiana State Teachers Association President Smith-Margraf said limited communication during a lockdown helps law enforcement.
“We've heard repeatedly from law enforcement that actually having a limited number of folks who are the ones responsible for communicating is better, because they need to have that quick traffic back and forth to be able to identify exactly where the threat is and who the threat is,” she said. “And when there's a huge uptick in cell phone traffic that actually interferes with their ability to do that.”
Regardless, McWilliams has concerns about kids not being able to contact parents during a lockdown. When he attended Tri North Middle School, lockdowns occurred frequently. Every time, he would use his phone to text his mom.
“I think even our teachers encouraged us to communicate with our parents what was going on with our phones,” he said. “So, if that was removed, then kids wouldn't be able to personally do that, which I think they have the responsibility to do so.”
What do students think?
Students in Louisville have felt the difference of not having their phone in class for the past year.
Before the start of the school year, sophomore Avery Mozee couldn’t live without his phone. He used his phone continuously during the summer. When the school year started, he got caught with his phone multiple times.
"I struggle, but it still gives me focus in school,” he said.
Without their phones, their grades have improved. They’re more productive in class.
“Now I actually pay attention in school and do my schoolwork,” said sophomore Evie Nethery. “I'm not using my phone. I just pay attention more. I got better grades because now I actually finished my work in class instead of doing it at home.”
Students, including sophomore Darius Avery, feel like they’ve also gotten better at communicating with others. He said he used to keep to himself.
“But now, I know how to walk up to somebody and actually present myself to them,” he said.
But students in Bloomington are skeptical. Bloomington High School South junior Chris Stein said he uses his phone two to three times a day, normally during study hall or lunch. He doesn’t think a new cellphone ban bill will work.
“They've [the state] tried to do this so many times, and it ends up just being about whether the teachers care or not,” he said. “And normally that's more up to the teacher than it is to the state.”
Students from Pleasure Ridge Park High School assured people in Indiana that it’ll be okay without their phones.
“At first, it'll be hard, but it's really not that big of a deal,” Nethery said. “You can have it after school.”
