LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Cellphones can be addictive and a distraction in the classroom. A Kentucky law was supposed to stop students from texting and being on their phones at school.
State lawmakers passed House Bill 208 in March 2025 and it went into effect the following school year. But the ban didn't stop thousands of Jefferson County Public Schools students from using their phones.
The law didn't set a statewide standard for technology in schools but it did require local school boards to create policies that keep cellphones out of the classroom.
JCPS let its schools decide how to implement the plan.
"The nice thing about the progressive discipline is on number six, we do suspend you," said Jason Stinson, the principal at Pleasure Ridge Park High School. "But we have to ask ourselves, you've been given five other chances to follow the rules and now you're at this point."
Students are given a Yondr pouch to lock their phones away but still keep it with them.
"We gave you the tool," Stinson said. "You have your cellphone out. Most of them are just very compliant and they will walk to their assistant principal."
Some let students keep their phones in their backpacks but at PRP, Stinson said the pouches worked.
"Some principals don't have the financial aptitude to buy Yondr pouches," he said. "The initial investment was about $10,000. So, that's a very big initial investment."
But some students still aren't following the rules. Students who get caught have to put their cellphone in a locked box until the end of the school day.
"We started at the first couple of weeks, we were about 50 phones a day from kids and at the end of the year, we're sending about 16 or 17 phones per day," Stinson said.
WDRB looked into the discipline numbers of students at all JCPS schools who aren't following the cellphone ban.
For the past school year there were more than 30,000 referrals. Those include disciplinary actions ranging from bus suspensions, to detention and in-school and out-of-school suspensions.
"We've had 178 kids suspended, so we've only had 178 get to that point," Stinson said.
There were over 2,300 out-of-school suspensions district-wide for not following the cellphone ban.
The schools in the top five for cellphone violations:
- Marion C. Moore School: 3,273
- Ballard High School: 3,231
- Jeffersontown High School: 2,992
- Southern High School: 2,982
- PRP High School: 2,731
"I thought it would be a lot higher than that," Stinson said about PRP. "I was thinking it would probably be somewhere in the range of 5,000 instances with kids."
Before the cellphone ban went into place, there were lots of discussions and some concerns from parents about not being able to reach their student during the school day.
"It really hasn't been an issue for us in emergencies," Stinson said.
He said parents can always call the office and if there's an emergency, the school will call 911.
Without students being glued to their phones, Stinson said he's seen a positive change at school.
"It's really cool because now when we go down to lunch, we actually see kids that are actually interacting with each other," he said. "They're playing card games. They're playing dominoes. They're playing UNO. They're talking to each other. They're reading books."
Stinson said library book checkouts jumped from 2,100 the year before to 7,765 this past school year.
"We have not seen KSA scores yet, so we don't have those back," he said. "But we have seen our CERT testing, which is what we use to measure our kids three times a year. We have seen CERT testing increase. We've seen our ACT average go up and our SAT average go up. We've seen the number of failures in classrooms go down."
Stinson said about 95% of seniors turn Yondr pouches back in because there's a charge if they don't.
"If we don't receive the Yondr pouch, we do have a $35 charge is what it costs us to replace the pouch and then we do collect that," he said.
With one school year down being cellphone-free, Stinson is looking forward to the upcoming school year.
"We've had a lot of parents tell us, 'Hey, thank you very much for getting rid of cellphones,'" Stinson said.
School officials said they need parents to also cooperate.
"Now, one of the craziest things is, and it's really an adult issue, is I'm texting or talking to my mom," Stinson said.
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