This fall, I talked to a principal at a high school in Kentucky.

The school had just instituted a bell-to-bell phone ban.

That means no phones all day, not even during lunch.

And the principal said that the change he saw in students was immediate.

Students are talking to one another. They're having conversations, you know, engaging in

class discussions. More assignments are getting turned in. Just the general vibe throughout

the day has been very, very positive.

This is Jason News.

He's the principal at Ballard High School in Louisville.

Just seeing students engage with one another, especially during lunch, when normally, you know,

the last couple of years you'd walk in there and everybody's got their head down, they're just kind of scrolling through, not really interacting.

And it's fun to see smiles on faces and students having a good time with it.

We've gotten to the point where we even on Fridays during lunches have offered up bingo.

And so the kids have kind of jumped in and started to do bingo.

And now they've asked for other games and events and things like that to happen.

He noticed something else, too.

Students were checking out way more library books.

There's been about a 65 to 70% increase in books that have been checked out of the library.

Jason actually sounded a little sad that his oldest son had already graduated

because he missed out on the phone ban.

He was somebody that was a big reader when he was younger.

And, you know, through COVID and the shift to where there was a big push towards

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