Next fall, every public elementary and middle school in Georgia will have to swim against the cultural tide by banishing cellphones.
It will be a major undertaking: nearly every teen in America has one, and they have grown up with addictive social media flashing across their screens. Despite the size of the task, some schools have already checked it off their to-do list, and their experience can serve as an example for the rest of the state.
Henry County, south of Atlanta, and home to 40,000 public school students, is a year ahead of the deadline, plus the school district not only restricts elementary and middle school students, which the new law covers, but includes high school students.
It’s a practice Superintendent John Pace calls creating distraction-free learning environments. House Bill 340, passed by Georgia lawmakers, requires public schools to prohibit personal communication devices for students in grades K-8 as of July 1, 2026.
