California tests limits of school phone ban movement
Smartphone ban tensions boiling over in California reflect a broader, national debate that crosses party lines.
By Tyler Katzenberger
Nearly two years after passing a law to restrict students’ use of smartphones at school, California’s fight over the issue is getting messier — and it’s part of a heated national debate.
At the local level in the Golden State, parents, educators and school boards are clashing over how strict tech bans should be ahead of a mid-summer deadline to clamp down on phones in the classroom. In some places, those spats are triggering scrutiny over technology’s wider role in education, marking a drastic shift from when districts raced to stick iPads and Chromebooks in students’ hands during the Covid pandemic.
And in the California Legislature, an effort to outright ban phones during the entire school day is pitting tech-skeptical Democrats against colleagues who argue that stringent rules imposed from the Capitol undermine local control.
The conflict bubbled up Wednesday during a state Assembly Education Committee hearing, where Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi was forced to pare back his bill that called for a strict school smartphone ban, AB 1644, after it received pushback from school administrators, school boards and committee chair Darshana Patel.
While Muratsuchi wanted a bell-to-bell ban for students from kindergarten through high school, arguing that kids’ focus will slip if they’re allowed to whip out phones between classes or during lunch, he “reluctantly” agreed during the hearing to exempt high schools from the ban. Committee members voted to advance the scaled-back measure.
“I feel passionately that the evidence is overwhelming, that bell-to-bell smartphone bans across the country have proven to be effective,” the Los Angeles Democrat told POLITICO in an interview after the hearing.
The California debate reflects a national split on phone bans that crosses party lines. While 41 states have enacted laws seeking to restrict phones in classrooms, according to a Ballotpedia analysis, they offer school districts drastically different amounts of flexibility, ranging from “encouraging” local restrictions to outright bans on phone use during the school day.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, likely a 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, has called on lawmakers in his state to pass a bell-to-bell phone ban, and Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a full-day ban in 2025.
But other state leaders have been hesitant to include high schoolers in a blanket ban, arguing that it would impede online classwork, prevent students from coordinating after-school activities and pose safety risks during emergencies like a fire or school shooting.
In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law last year that gave high schools greater discretion in setting student phone use policies. Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat and likely 2028 presidential contender, is supporting similar legislation in Illinois this year.
Back in California, gubernatorial candidate and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said during a FOX 40 candidate debate Wednesday night that he would “ban cell phone use during the academic day in public schools all the way through high school” if elected. Nonprofit groups such as Common Sense Media and Mothers Against Media Addiction also support a statewide full-day ban, as does tech industry trade group TechNet.
“Other states are keeping cell phones out of school for all students — California should too,” Common Sense founder and CEO Jim Steyer said in a statement. “Limiting these protections to K-8 leaves high schoolers behind at exactly the age when the risks are greatest.”
But California groups representing school administrators and board members take issue with a blanket ban — as does Patel, a San Diego Democrat and former school board president.
“There are many legitimate uses of the smartphone,” Patel said during Wednesday’s hearing. “It has now become a handheld computer that has very powerful purposes to help us organize our very busy lives.”
A spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom, who in 2024 signed a school smartphone law that stopped short of mandating bell-to-bell restrictions, declined to comment on the issue.
Local control by design
California’s prolonged battle over phone bans is a predictable byproduct of how the state’s “Phone-Free Schools Act” was designed.
The 2024 law, authored by Muratsuchi and Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover with backing from Newsom, was left open-ended to balance tech restrictions with safety and local control concerns. It ordered schools to pass “a policy to limit or prohibit” phone use by July 2026 but included few details about what those policies should look like. Instead, it told districts to conduct vigorous public outreach and craft rules that incorporated community feedback — an approach that placated school boards and administrators.
“In as diverse a state as California is,” California School Boards Association spokesperson Troy Flint told POLITICO, “a one-size-fits-all, blanket policy is not the right solution.”
That compromise left California’s more than 1,000 districts to their own devices on what to do about devices, teeing up a series of local fights as school officials scrambled to comply with the law. In some communities, parents and school board members have clashed over which smartphone restrictions to implement ahead of the July deadline.
Some rules, like those adopted for the Tamalpais Unified School District in Marin County, strictly order students to lock phones in sealed pouches during the entire school day, but other policies in places like Santa Barbara allow older students to use their phones between classes and during lunch periods.
A few school districts are going even further to restrict tech: Los Angeles Unified School District, the state’s largest, just this week approved a resolution to limit students’ screen time. It calls for keeping kids entirely off screens until second grade, tracking and limiting screen time for older students, and prioritizing “paper-and-pen” assignments. (Muratsuchi called LAUSD’s move “a step in the right direction.”)
With the policies still being finalized at the local level, grassroots organizations have joined forces in hopes of swaying the debate. Parent-led groups like MAMA, Distraction-Free Schools and Schools Beyond Screens are campaigning district-by-district, calling on school boards to approve K-12 bell-to-bell bans.
Julie Frumin, a mom and family therapist from Westlake Village who co-leads Distraction-Free Schools, said that advocates have biweekly calls to draft letters to school board members, coordinate talking points for board meetings and share updates on phone policies pending in different districts.
“We are really doing this as a coalition across the whole state,” Frumin said. “Phone-free schools will happen. We will continue pushing until it does.”
California parents also appear split on the issue: A Public Policy Institute of California poll released last week found that a majority of those with school aged-children — 52 percent — support school phone policies that permit students to use their devices between classes and during lunch, while 40 percent back an all-day ban.
For now, state lawmakers are widening their scope beyond the Muratsuchi legislation. Hoover is authoring a bill this year that would require districts to adopt “digital wellness” instructional plans, and Democratic state Sen. Henry Stern has proposed a separate measure that would direct California’s Department of Education to publish model guidelines dictating “age-appropriate use” of electronic devices issued to students.
“We’re going to look at all the ways that we need to address this,” Democratic state Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, another proponent of stricter tech rules for kids, told POLITICO. He said he thinks the group of lawmakers seeking more restrictions “is growing because more and more parents and communities are speaking out.”
Frumin said advocates are encouraged by the recent developments and plan to step up their involvement in Sacramento, with goals to place a temporary moratorium on AI use in elementary and middle schools, mandate paper testing for young learners and pivot back to computer labs and Chromebook carts.
Still, she said it’s a knotty issue.
“It is incredibly difficult for families to navigate,” she said. “You’ve got your 11-year-old flipping back and forth between YouTube or Roblox or whatever, on the same screen in which they’re supposed to be doing their homework.”
