How one California school district makes cellphone ban work in class

A bi-partisan bill in Sacramento would require schools to devise a policy to limit cellphone use by July of 2026

Los Angeles Unified School District passed a resolution two months ago to create a comprehensive cellphone policy to take effect by January 2025. Santa Barbara Unified School District created a cellphone policy two years ago, which went into effect last year.

Related story: CA passes bill requiring schools to devise plan to ban or limit phones during the school day

"Off and Away" is the district policy to limit the use of cellphones during the school day. It's not a ban, but a way to protect the learning zone. At the beginning of every class, students drop the phone into what's called a "cell phone hotel."

"All or nothing is never a good policy -- it's always progress and not perfection," SBUSD Assistant Superintendent for student planning and family service ShaKenya Edison said. "So, we protected the places where we wanted kids to be most engaged, which was the classroom."

SBUSD's planning began two years ago, led by the teacher's union and school administrators with input from parents and mental health experts. By January 2023, a soft rollout began with very few complaints and immediate results.

"What we've seen from it then is this huge increase in engagement with our kids," San Marcos High School Principal Dare Holdren said. "When they're not trying to sneak their cellphones around and figure out how to use them for this and that. They're actually working with material and engaging with material -- it's made a big difference."

One of the reasons this has worked in the Santa Barbara Unified School District is that every school in the district is involved and every teacher is engaged as well -- no one more lenient than another.

"There's no pushback, no nothing," San Marcos High School Spanish teacher Esther Limon said. "It's just, everyone knows it's an expectation now."

"I don't have to do any conflict management cause it just is part of what we do," English teacher Frank Koroshec said. "I think the relationships are healthier. I have not had this low of a stress level in 21 years."

A student caught using a cellphone in class is sent to administrators who call the parents after a first violation. Future violations could result in losing the phone for the entire school day. The idea is to work together, to teach self-management to students who have always had cell phones in their life.

"The same way we teach reading, writing and science, we also are teaching self-management, self-awareness and helping them understand when they're using their phones to escape a situation or to seek out companionship or belonging," Limon said.

"During COVID, it was like, you're plugged in for school. Technology was school for them, and so now having to get them back to like, classroom is school and technology is more of like your free time, your personal time," Koroshec explained. "It's really not a crazy thing. We have to do some work to help kids control the device that's designed to keep them using."