Away For The Day | Latest News - Kentucky High Schools Banned Cell Phones, Students Started Checking Out Books

Mitch Barnhart’s goal is to put rings on fingers and diplomas in hands. Around the state of Kentucky, schools took cell phones out of students’ hands and replaced them with library books.

House Bill 208 went into effect this summer, requiring phones to be kept off and out of sight during a school day. Kentucky is one of 35 states that restricts or bans cell phone usage during school. Discretion was left open-ended for school districts to determine how to enforce the new policy. In Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), some tell the students to keep it in their lockers during the day, while other schools purchased lock pouches, like the kinds used to comedy shows, to prevent students from using their devices.

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Middletown schools actually implemented a cellphone-free environment in 2022 and reaffirmed it last year, saying the policy had "significantly enhanced classroom learning experiences across our district.

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Oelke said that she had previously worked at a school with a zero-tolerance cell phone policy. “It was absolutely one of the best teaching years that I have had in over a decade,” Oelke said.

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Officials with the Phoenix Elementary School District said they follow "away for the day" guidelines, where students have to turn their phones off once they get to campus.

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Anchor Bay schools are going cellphone-free this fall. The district is planning to roll out a new “Away-for-the-Day” device policy at the start of the 2025-26 school year.

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June 18, 2025

Anchor Bay Schools calls it the “Away-for-the-Day” device policy, and some parents have told Local 4 that they have safety concerns about it.

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Under the new policy, Scotia-Glenville middle and high school students will be required to keep their phones in their lockers from the start to the end of the school day. The district has decided against using phone pouches.

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Officials with the Phoenix Elementary School District said they follow "away for the day" guidelines, where students have to turn their phones off once they get to campus.

Anchor Bay schools are going cellphone-free this fall. The district is planning to roll out a new “Away-for-the-Day” device policy at the start of the 2025-26 school year.

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Under the new policy, Scotia-Glenville middle and high school students will be required to keep their phones in their lockers from the start to the end of the school day. The district has decided against using phone pouches.

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