Jim Thorpe Area School District administrators are preparing for a statewide bell-to-bell cellphone ban they expect to become law, and have set a June 24 meeting to craft a uniform policy. District figures show phones drew 277 disciplinary offenses at the high school this year, several of them tied to recorded fights, cheating and students who refused to surrender their devices.

The numbers come from the high school’s first year operating under its own bell-to-bell rule.

“I did pull our data just for the cellphone, because we did a bell-to-bell for the high school this school year,” high school Assistant Principal Avery Hower said. The school enrolls about 485 students, or roughly 455 once online learners are set aside, the administrator said.

“For cellphone violations across the board, we had 277 cellphone offenses this school year,” Hower said. “Four of those offenses leveled up to videoing assaults and fights, which goes above an additional cellphone offense. Three of those offenses also dealt with cheating on an assessment or test, and 12 were complete insubordination, where students refused to hand over the device.”

The district’s current policy escalates penalties with each violation and reaches beyond phones.

“Our current policy this year for the high school was a bell-to-bell ban — cellphones, AirPods, earbuds, anything electronic that was not a district-issued iPad,” Hower said. “Your first offense, you were provided with a warning. The second offense was a one-and-a-half-hour detention and a parent pickup of the device. The third offense was a three-hour detention and a parent pickup. The fourth offense was an out-of-school suspension.”

A refusal to hand over a device counts as insubordination, which also brings a suspension, Hower said.

The local preparations come as Pennsylvania moves toward a statewide mandate. The Pennsylvania House and Senate have both passed legislation requiring public schools to implement “bell-to-bell” cellphone bans during the school day. The chambers passed differing versions of the bills and are now working to reconcile the language before sending it to Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has voiced his support for the policy.

A bell-to-bell ban means students cannot use their phones on school grounds the entire day, including during homeroom, lunch and recess, except in some circumstances, while schools decide how the policy looks at the classroom level. Proposed legislation also includes exceptions for students whose individualized education plans require a personal communication device, English as a second language learners who need phones to help translate and teachers using phones as an instructional tool when approved by principals.

District leaders said they expect the ban to take effect and want to be ready.

“It is going to happen, so we are meeting on the 24th to discuss how we want to handle it,” Jim Thorpe Superintendent Robert Presley said. “We talked about it at our administration meeting about making sure that we are consistent across the district with what we’re doing.”