ATLANTA — Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns is backing a plan to expand the state school cellphone ban beyond K-8 and into high school classrooms.
Channel 2 Action News reported previously when the Georgia Department of Education put out its list of legislative priorities for 2026, which included the cellphone ban expansion.
Adding the remaining four grade levels to the provisions of the state’s Distraction-Free Education Act is supported by Burns and other lawmakers, as well as educators and school administrators.
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At a November 2025 meeting, Marietta School Superintendent Grant Rivera presented the results of the district’s ban on cellphones in 2024, which came before statewide legislation implemented the ban in all K-8 classrooms in Georgia.
During that same meeting, researchers from Georgia Southern University showed survey results from teachers across Georgia nearly begging to have the phone ban expanded.
“This has affected everything from attention span to attitude. Please, please help us in HS and ban these phones statewide,” one survey respondent was quoted as saying.
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