ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – A small device with big impacts.
Cell phones in schools have parents and students split. Are they a nuisance? Or are they necessary for a child’s safety?
“I feel like having cell phones in school is a big distraction,” Cobb County grandmother April Middleton said.
“What I did last year is I just had it in my pocket, in case an intruder comes in. Then I’ll be ready, and I can notify my parents and let them know what happened,” Cobb County student Carter Middleton said.
This year, Georgia lawmakers passed the “Distraction Free Education Act,” which essentially bans student cell from use from bell to bell.
It will apply to all Georgia public school students from kindergarten to eighth grade and goes into effect in 2026.
The law doesn’t specify how schools must impose the ban, so it may look different from district to district.
Cobb County Schools Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said they will only require students to keep phones on silent and stored in backpacks or purses.
“I can say that we are not going to invest any money into storage solutions for cell phones,” Ragsdale said.
Other districts like Rockdale County and Marietta City Schools have already purchased and implemented specialized, locked pouches for students to store personal devices in during the school day. They are made by a company called Yondr.
Marietta City Schools Superintendent Grant Rivera said they’ve already been effective in Marietta classrooms.
“Students themselves reporting that their classrooms are a better learning environment. Teachers in our middle grades have told us we are not fighting cell phones anymore,” Rivera said.
But some families fear in the event of an emergency, like the 2024 mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, their child couldn’t access their phone quickly if it’s locked up.
Layla Contreras said she’s thankful her little sister, an Apalachee student, had access to her cell phone on that tragic day.
“During this incident that was the only way we could see if they were still alive,” Contreras said.
That’s why Atlanta-based tech company Cellairis says they’ve developed a new solution called the Cyber Pouch.
John Mecum is the global sales coordinator for Cellairis. He said once a phone is placed in the cyber pouch, it cuts off connectivity, blocking all calls, texts, and notifications.
“What we aim to do with the cyber pouch is block all incoming and outgoing signals,” Mecum said.
It’s sealed with Velcro and comes with a carabiner, allowing students to hang them from their desks, backpacks, or even a stand at the front of a classroom.
“We think that it’s going to reignite focus in the classroom, provide educators an opportunity to do their job with minimal distractions, and provide parents the peace of mind that they can rest assured that in any applicable situation their student, their child, has the means to contact them,” Mecum said.
Both the Yondr pouch and Cyber Pouch cost about $25 to $30 per unit. Last year, DeKalb County Schools approved $400,000 in their budget to purchase roughly 15 hundred Yondr pouches as part of a pilot program.
All districts in the state must have a plan in place by Jan. 1, 2026 as to how they’ll comply with the new Distraction Free Education Act. The ban goes into place at the beginning of the 2026 school year.
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