If you’re a parent of a tween or teen, you likely won’t be surprised to hear that the nation’s second largest school district recently voted to ban students from carrying cell phones during the school day. Citing safety and security concerns along with disruptions in learning, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) joins a growing number of schools and states banning cell phones and social media use during school hours. But the question remains: Can they do it effectively?
“Kids no longer have the opportunity to just be kids,” says Nick Melvoin, the LAUSD school board member who spearheaded the ban. “I’m hoping this resolution will help students not only focus in class, but also give them a chance to engage more with each other — and just be kids.”
New cell phone rules for Los Angeles schools
At their meeting on June 18, 2024, the LAUSD Board of Education voted to ban student use of cell phones and social media during school hours in an effort to improve student mental health and well-being.
A memorandum from the meeting acknowledges implementation and enforcement problems with their existing 2011 cell phone policy which “prohibits the use of cell phones during normal school hours or school activities, excluding lunchtime or nutrition unless the school has adopted a stricter policy.”
The flexibility offered by this original policy made way for district schools (and classrooms) to have differing rules around cell phones. Teachers frequently cited students using their headphones and earbuds parred with their cell phones throughout the school day — impeding their classroom engagement.
While LAUSD has yet to make the logistics of the revised policy public, it is said to take effect in January 2025 with some exemptions allowed for the roughly 429,000 students impacted.
However, the memorandum does cite one major potential drawback: “Student cell phone use could potentially decrease school safety during certain emergencies, spreading misinformation and interfering with official communications and directions to students.”
Ron Self, the director of safety, security and risk management for Little Rock School District, central Arkansas’ largest school district, says cell phones have been a significant problem schools have been grappling with for over a decade. “Finding a solution won’t be as simple as having a policy or law to ban them,” he notes. “The issue is truly a catch-22.”
Self, who is also a founding committee member of the National Council of School Safety Directors, also wonders about students who ride the city bus or walk to school. “Will administrators be expected to collect phones every day? What happens if a phone gets lost? What if there’s a safety issue? Right now, I’m sure parents and administrators feel like there are many questions left to be answered.”
He says it’s much easier to get a policy like LAUSD’s passed than it is to enforce and communicate it but acknowledges there are great rewards when things are done properly.
Case in point: California’s San Mateo-Foster City School District instituted signal-blocking Yoder pouches that allow students to keep their cell phones with them during the school day without the ability to access them. In an interview with NBC News, superintendent Diego Ochoa called the pouches an “unquestionable success” with students paying more attention in class and spending more time talking with each other outside of class.
While LAUSD has yet to make the logistics of the revised policy public, it is said to take effect in January 2025 with some exemptions allowed for the roughly 429,000 students impacted.
Melvoin’s office says the district plans to use the time between now and January to build buy-in and engagement with parents. Some parents, for example, are notably guilty of texting their children throughout the day — a behavior the district hopes to minimize now that they know their child doesn’t have their phone on them. In other words, texting your child for the Netflix password isn’t an emergency and can wait.
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