California Gov. Newsom signs law requiring school districts to limit or ban students from using smartphones on campus

The legislation makes California the latest state to try to limit student phone access in an effort to minimize distractions in the classroom and address the mental health impact of social media on children. Florida, Louisiana, Indiana and several other states have passed laws designed to restrict student phone use at school.

“This new law will help students focus on academics, social development and the world in front of them, not on their screens, when they’re at school,” Newsom said in a statement.

But some critics of phone restriction policies say the burden shouldn’t fall on teachers to enforce them. Others fear the rules will make it harder for students to seek help in an emergency, or argue that decisions about phone bans should be left up to individual districts or schools.

“We support those districts that have already acted independently to implement restrictions because, after a stakeholder needs analysis, they determined it made the most sense for their communities in terms of safety, school culture and academic achievement,” Troy said. Flint. , a spokesman for the California School Boards Association. “We simply oppose the mandate.”

The law requires districts to adopt rules by July 1, 2026, to limit or prohibit students from using smartphones on campus or while students are under the supervision of school staff. Districts will have to update their policies every five years after that.

The move comes after Newsom signed a law in 2019 authorizing school districts to restrict student phone access. In June, he announced plans to address the issue again after the US surgeon general asked Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms and their effects on young people.

The governor then sent letters to districts last month urging them to limit student device use on campus. This came on a day when the board for the nation’s second-largest school district, Los Angeles Unified, voted to ban student phone use during the school day starting in January.

Rep. Josh Hoover, a Republican who represents Folsom, introduced the bill with a bipartisan group of lawmakers who are also parents.

Phones are restricted where Hoover’s children — ages 15, 12 and 10 — go to school. Many of the students don’t always like the policy, which partly reflects how addictive phones can be, he said.

“Whenever you talk about breaking that addiction, it’s definitely going to be hard for students at times,” Hoover said. “But I think overall they understand why it’s important, why it helps them focus better in class, and why it actually helps them have better social interaction with their peers face-to-face when they’re at school.”

Some parents have expressed concern that banning cell phones from school could interrupt their children if there is an emergency. Those fears were highlighted after a shooting at a Georgia high school left four dead and nine injured this month.

The 2019 law authorizing districts to restrict student phone access makes exceptions for emergency situations, and the new law doesn’t change that. Some advocates of school phone restrictions say it’s better to have phones turned off in an active shooter situation so they don’t ring and reveal a student’s location.

Teachers have reported seeing more engaged students since the Santa Barbara Unified School District began fully enforcing a ban on student phone use in the classroom during the 2023-24 school year, Assistant Superintendent ShaKenya Edison said.

Nick Melvoin, a Los Angeles Unified board member who introduced the district’s resolution, said adopting policies at the district or state level can help prevent students from feeling like they’re missing out on what’s happening on social media.

Before students used cellphones during the school day at Sutter Middle School in Folsom, students were seen recording fights, filming TikTok challenges and spending their lunch hour looking at online content, Principal Tarik McFall said. The rule has “totally changed the culture” of the school so that students spend more time talking to each other, he said.

“To put it aside, to stop them and have that be a practice, it was a great thing,” McFall said.

Teachers have become more reliant in recent years on technology as a learning tool for students, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, said Mara Harvey, a social studies teacher at Discovery High School in the Natomas Unified School District.

The district, which is located in Sacramento, provides students in grades 1 through 12 with a Chromebook, where they can access online textbooks and Google Classroom, a platform where teachers share classroom materials. But if a student forgets their Chromebook at home, their smartphone becomes “the next viable choice to access the curriculum,” Harvey said.