Cellphones will be banned in Georgia public high schools starting in the 2027-28 school year, if Gov. Brian Kemp signs House Bill 1009 into law.
The state Senate passed the measure unanimously on Monday.
“This is a great, great, win for our students and our classrooms,” said Rep. Scott Hilton, R-Peachtree Corners, the author of the bill.
He has argued that devices are a distraction that can incite disruptions, including fights.
The all-out ban on personal devices would bring Georgia in line with other states that have prohibited personal devices in schools. Those bans tend to be across all grade levels, but an earlier prohibition passed into law in Georgia was only for elementary and middle schools.
That law, established last year, will affect K-8 schools starting this summer. If HB 1009 goes into effect and extends the ban to high schools, current seventh graders will never be able to use a phone in school again after this semester.
A Democrat’s attempt to amend the bill failed on the Senate floor. Sen. RaShaun Kemp, D-Atlanta, wanted students to have access to their phones between classes.
Some have jobs, some even have children, the former high school principal said. “I do not believe that we should do a blanket policy that treats 17 year olds like 7 year olds.”
Sen. Shawn Still, R-Suwanee, who presented the bill on the Senate floor, opposed the amendment.
It would have forced teachers to regulate devices when students returned to class, he said, and they didn’t want that responsibility.
There was no debate about crisis communications, an issue that had come up in the House last month before that chamber passed the high school phone ban 145-20.
Some then had expressed concerns about parents being able to talk to, or text with, their children during a crisis, such as the 2024 mass shooting that left four dead at Apalachee High School in Barrow County.
Loved ones had used their devices to share status updates and what they thought might be final messages.
But safety experts have said phones can be a distraction in an emergency, as police and teachers try to lead students through the danger.
If a child listens to a parent’s instruction rather than to a teacher who is relaying instructions from police, the outcome can be catastrophic, said Still said after Monday’s vote.
Many Georgia high schools voluntarily banned the devices from their schools ahead of the deadline after Kemp signed the K-8 restrictions into law last year. Some even included high schools in their local bans.
The positive reception among teachers, parents and even some students helped Hilton make the case to expand the statewide prohibition to high schools.
Still, who worked with Hilton on the bill since the summer, said he had heard no pushback from parents or teachers.
“I think the only people that are going to have a hard time with this are the teenagers that have to adjust to life without it,” he said, noting that most adults alive today grew up without cellphones and that adults would “have to kind of reprogram” for a tech-free existence.
This story available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
