(The Center Square) – A year after the Georgia General Assembly passed a bill banning personal cellphones and two-way electronic devices in grades K-8, a bill that would ban them in high schools is poised for passage.
House Bill 1009 was approved 145-20 by the House of Representatives on Feb. 24. The Senate Children and Families Committee agreed to advance it on Tuesday after a short hearing.
The bill would require high schools to prevent students from having their phones from bell to bell. Each school would choose how it wants to enforce the ban.
Schools would be required to enforce the ban in the 2027-28 school year. House Bill 340, which banned phones in elementary schools, took effect in the 2025-26 school year after passing during the 2025 session of the General Assembly.
“It was good because we dipped our toe in the water and schools got used to it,” said Rep. Scott Hilton, R-Peachtree Corners, the bill’s sponsor. “They liked it and I’ll tell you, the number of not just parents and teachers but kids that have come to me and said, ‘Wow, I think I kind of like this you know,’ has been impressive.”
Nathan D’Silva is a 17-year-old student at Milton High School. He told the committee that his high school already has a ban in place.
“And I personally have seen from the classroom environment to the conversations at the lunch table have absolutely changed, absolutely become transformative,” D’Silva said. “And it’s no joke how policies like this, especially HB1009, prove so transformative in engaging students and making it easier for teachers to teach students better and get better test results and get better test scores, but most of all, school becomes so much more fun.”
Georgia School Superintendent Richard Woods appeared before the committee to support the bill.
“We’ve heard this is a cellphone ban but I would say this is not a cellphone ban, it is actually a student liberation bill,” Woods said. “It gives them freedom back to to build relationships. It gives them freedom back to build academic time and again, it allows them to graduate even stronger.”
No one spoke in opposition to the bill during Tuesday’s committee meeting.