FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. — The Fayette County Board of Education is having discussions on a potential cell phone ban in the classroom.
This comes after Governor Patrick Morrisey signed HB 2003 into law on April 29, allowing for school districts to prohibit the use of cell phones.
The legislation takes effect at the beginning of the 2025-26 school year and it aims to reduce classroom distractions and improve student focus.
The first reading on a proposed cell phone ban policy was presented during Fayette County’s school board meeting Tuesday night.
Fayette County Schools Superintendent Gary Hough said the board will take a final vote regarding the matter at a meeting on June 10.
Hough said, however, that they are already starting to prepare for implementation of the policy in their schools.
“We met with our principals yesterday, because they will have to be the ones to enforce it and we wanted to make sure what they were comfortable with enforcing it, so we will be discussing what we have decided up until this point, but it’s still up for modification until June 10th,” said Hough.
Hough said what they decided to take to the board Tuesday night for the first reading is a proposed policy that would include the banning of cell phones in sixth through twelfth grade classrooms.
He said within the proposal, those students would be able to have cell phones at school, but they would have to be kept in their lockers. But, he added that there would be some exceptions to this rule.
“There’s a medical exception if someone has a medical condition and they bring the right documentation, there’s an exception if they have a duel credit class and they need it for authentication to be able to get on the duel credits at the universities and colleges and any codes that are sent to them, so there’s some exceptions to that,” he said.
Otherwise, Hough said during the day, they would not be permitted to have a cell phone out.
He said for fifth grade and below, this proposal will not allow any cell phones at all.
Hough said while everyone may not agree with the proposed policy, cell phone usage definitely creates a distraction in the classroom and in today’s world.
“No matter if it’s in a classroom or any place, people seem to spend a lot of time on phones and we need to get our students concentrating,” he said. “Where we have experimented, we’ve seen a good increase in test scores and we’ve held the line on those issues,” Hough said.
While safety in today’s classroom is always the main concern for many parents, Hough said that he wants to remind them that Fayette County has excellent communication across all of its schools and the central office.
He said all classrooms now come equipped with a phone for any emergency that may arise.
“If you have an active shooter emergency or anything of that nature, we have the ability to communicate instantaneously,” he said. “In Fayette County, I have the ability to lock down a school, I can make announcements to the entire school system from my telephone on my desk.”
Hough said they have so far made little modifications to the proposed policy, and now they are just waiting to hear the board’s feelings on the matter as well as listen to comments from the general public.
He said he believes that long-term, removing cell phones from the classroom could be a real benefit.
“Even disciplinary matters decrease a great deal, particularly on the middle and high school level, so all of those things are valuable as we deal with it, and I think there will be some adjustment to it, but in the long run, I think it will be beneficial,” Hough said.