Kentucky kids could soon face classroom cell phone ban thanks to 'common sense' bill

A Bluegrass State bill could soon ban student cell phone use in classrooms across Kentucky, allowing exceptions only for instructional purposes and emergencies. 

"You can't teach kids that are distracted," State Rep. Josh Bray, a Republican who introduced the bill, said Sunday on "FOX & Friends Weekend."

Bray touted the effort as a "common sense" approach to curtailing the increasingly problematic use of social media and texting during school hours. The push, he said, came after hearing from teachers who said the distractions make their jobs more challenging. 

"I was at a middle school basketball game, and I had a teacher approach me, and they talked about the need to get cell phones out of classrooms. They said it's a tremendous distraction, especially post-COVID. We faced a number of issues in the education space, post-COVID. We've seen a drastic increase in mental health issues. We've seen an increase in suicides. Test scores aren't where we want them to be, so we just thought that this was common sense," Bray said.