In the 2025 session, Kentucky passed House Bill 208, sponsored by Rep. Josh Bray (R–Mount Vernon), which made each school district create a policy to ban cellphones, but let each of them choose how to do it. This was signed into law by Governor Andy Beshear on March 26. JCPS was given the next few months to establish a phone ban policy before the following school year.
On Tuesday, May 13, the school board opted for “Option 3,” which prohibits phones at all times of the day. Option 1 would have banned them during instruction but allowed them during lunch and transitions, and Option 2 would have banned them during transitions and instruction but allowed them during lunch.
JCPS surveyed principals, teachers, parents and students to determine who favored which option. Principals generally favored Option 3, as did teachers, parents were largely ambivalent and 81% of students supported option 1. It should be noted that the number of student respondents was the smallest of any of those surveyed, and so may not be as representative of consensus as the other pools.
JCPS’s Fern Creek High School already banned phones for the 2024–2025 year. 97% of their teachers had reported student cell phone usage as their biggest issue in the classroom, and the Courier Journal reported satisfaction among Fern Creek staff.
“[Students have] been more social with each other,” Principal Rebecca Nicolas told the Journal. “We see them reading books and playing card games and talking to each other in the cafeteria in ways we didn’t see before. I think it’s like they were being freed from their device.”
Each school will get to decide how they design the framework of their own phone ban. This would include how students would be able to reach parents throughout the school day.
The policy will also include several exceptions that will allow students to access their phones. These would include emergency or if a student had a 504 plan or an IEP, which are accommodations for individuals with disabilities. For example, Fern Creek classrooms have scissors to cut open pouches in the case of an emergency.
