On March 12th, the Kentucky Legislature passed House Bill 208, which requires school boards to adopt policies for phones during instructional time. With the exception of emergencies, passing periods, and lunch, students are required to put their phones away during class time.
Here at HC, staff have been provided with calculator pouches to keep students’ phones away during instructional time. Although this law is beneficial to staff, it does not completely eliminate the distractions it was created to address.
With this school year implementing block scheduling, students will now have eight classes in the span of two days lasting from 90 to 100 minutes. Although this seems like a benefit on top of no phones, teachers have felt more disconnected from students than they have from previous years. On certain occasions, teachers would not see their students for up to four days following a weekend.
The lack of phone usage during class should reduce distractions. However, Chromebooks are still a matter of distraction. Games, movie sites, and AI are still available for students during class. This doesn’t seem to support the phone law, which is to diminish these distractions during class.
This law leads to a general assumption that all students use their phones as a distraction, which is unjust. School is meant to be there to educate students and prepare them for their future following. Demeaning phones distracting might start having a hindrance on resources, as a lot of students use their phones outside of distractions.
