Gov. Mike Dewine signed House Bill 250 on May 15, 2024, requiring Ohio schools to adopt a policy governing cell phone usage during school by July 2025.
According to an Ohio Department of Education and Workforce press release, more than 60% of school districts had already implemented a policy regarding phone usage before the deadline.
Forty-one percent said they prohibited phone use entirely during the school day, and 45% said they allow phones only for limited times during the day.
Rural schools were above the state average in adopting a cell phone policy, with 68% of schools in rural areas having adopted a policy at the beginning of the 2024-25 school year, while only 55% of suburban schools implemented one.
Athens, Alexander, Belpre and Nelsonville school districts have all implemented a policy that involves limiting cell phone use, according to the Ohio Department of Education Report. Federal Hocking and Logan schools are still prepping a plan to be carried out for the 2025-26 school year.
William Hampton, superintendent of Alexander Local Schools, said Alexander decided to implement a full-day phone ban in the schools.
“They are not permitted to be in class with kids during the day,” Hampton said. “They’re supposed to put them into their locker and then go through their day and then pick their phones up on their way out of school.”
The policy adopted by Alexander complies with the governor’s encouragement to eliminate cell phones during the school day. In a statement, Gov. DeWine shared his thoughts about how the policy should be enacted.
“Local school districts will create the policies that work best in their environments and for their students, but the core mission of the bill is clear: minimize screen time during school time,” Gov. DeWine said.
Dan Doseck, assistant principal at Alexander High School, said he believes the policy has made a difference in the students. Before phones were limited in the district, Doseck said the students were using their devices instead of interacting with each other.
“Even when they were walking down the hallway, they weren’t communicating with each other,” Doseck said.
Doseck said he noticed their cell phone policy had a positive effect on student communication, behavior and engagement.
“They are communicating with each other, as far as physically talking to each other, a lot more,” Doseck said. “As far as discipline, we’re seeing a lot less discipline … so we have seen several benefits.”
Sean Parsons, Athens City School Board president, said his district used the model phone policy provided by the Ohio Department of Education as a guide for their decision. Athens School District started its cell phone policy in Fall 2024, and Parsons said it is working to ensure students can complete their daily tasks without their phones.
“All of the students are using Chromebooks … so they do have access to things to do research, for email and those sort of things,” Parsons said. “We’ve really worked as a district to continue to improve our communication with families … we’ve been trying to do a better job of getting that information to negate the use of cell phones.”
Teachers and parents have also had favorable reactions to the new policies. Doseck said the high school teachers are benefitting from a cell phone ban and have seen an improvement in the classroom.
“Teachers have been very adamant about saying they love the policy,” Doseck said. “They have seen numerous gains where the kids are more attentive, more involved and engaged in the classroom.”
Parsons said some parents have contacted him about creating even more restrictions on cell phone use.
Parsons said he and the Athens City School Board needed the governor to enforce this bill because it was a good motivator for them to finally tackle the issue of cell phones in schools.
“We’d been talking about the use of cell phones in schools and what we wanted to be doing, but that was a push from the state we needed to adopt an official board policy on the issue,” Parsons said.
