Students aren’t using the Yondr cell phone pouches — but cell phone use in schools is down.

Several students who took part in a town hall meeting, put together by school board member Dr. Marcus Scott, said they and their fellow students don’t use the pouches the school system purchased to keep cell phones out of students’ hands during the school day.

“Overall, we are pleased with the pouches and the decrease in the amount of situations we have had because of cell phones in the school,” said deputy superintendent Dr. Zheadric Barbra.

The Liberty County School System enacted a new cell phone policy, beginning with the 2024-25 school year, for middle and high schoolers. Each student has been given a Yondr pouch in which to put their cell phones at the beginning of the day. The pouches — except for those who have an established need for them in an emergency, such as a student with diabetes needing to check their blood sugar — lock magnetically.

As more school districts turned to the Yondr pouch to eliminate cell phone use during classes, the state is going one step further. Both the state Senate and House of Representatives gave overwhelming support to HB 340, which calls for the same policy Liberty County Schools have for middle and high schoolers to be adopted statewide for elementary and middle schoolers. The bill awaits Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature to become law. Meanwhile, discipline referrals and the number of days students are in either in-school suspension or have been suspended from school have been cut in half this year.

School system officials also are taking the remarks from students to heart about the lack of cell phone pouch use.

“We will be following up,” said Dr. Barbra.

Students also offered the longstanding lament of local teens — the lack of activities.

“Liberty County is just boring,” said one of the panel members. “We have to go to Savannah to have fun.”

Other students broached the possibilities of having trampoline parks or places with bumper cars.

One of the biggest issues among the students also was the amount of vaping kids are doing.