Schools across Georgia will have to figure out how to pry cellphones from students’ hands next year now that a new ban will be taking effect.
House Bill 340 prohibits personal communications devices in public school classrooms from kindergarten through eighth grade. The ban goes into effect in the summer of 2026. Gov. Brian Kemp signed the legislation last week after it passed the Georgia General Assembly with broad bipartisan support earlier this year. School districts have until January to write policies and procedures for locking up students’ phones from the first bell in the morning to the last one in the afternoon.
They must implement those policies by July 1, 2026, with hundreds of thousands of students affected when school starts that fall.
