San Diego Unified adopted a new, more flexible ban on student cellphone use at school to replace a decades-old policy. But questions remain about how it will be enforced, and one trustee worries the new ban doesn’t go far enough.
The updated ban, approved Tuesday, comes on the heels of a new state requirement that California education agencies adopt policies restricting cellphone use before next summer.
Superintendent Fabiola Bagula said it was important to keep up not only with technology but also with students’ and teachers’ changing relationships with it, just as they did during the pandemic. “I see teachers to this day use QR codes for syllabus, have them vote on specific things, using their phone as a tool,” she said.
But she said she also wants to see students engaged, and not getting in trouble for using phones in school.
The San Diego Unified board unanimously approved the new policy. Even as she voted for it, trustee Shana Hazan said she wanted to monitor it, expressing concerns about letting younger high school students use phones at school.
“Give me some confidence about why we think high school students should be able to use phones during lunch and during passing periods (when) middle school students shouldn’t — and have this aligned with our wellness goal,” she said.
Bagula said high schools are welcome to have phone-free zones, but she stressed a need to give high school students greater flexibility than younger students who might be more impulsive.
In developing the policy, the district solicited and received feedback from students, she told Hazan and the other trustees.
“I’m going to invite you next time the Student Advisory Board comes together, and let’s pose that question to them,” she said. “I don’t think this is a done thing, because the technology is going to evolve.”
Under the new policy, cellphones are explicitly and broadly banned in all schools and grades, but high school students can use them at lunch and during the passing periods in between classes.
All students in all grades can use phones on school buses, provided they don’t interfere with bus operations. And phones are allowed in emergency situations, during teacher-approved instructional use and for situations related to students’ health and to disabled students’ individualized education programs and 504 plans.
That’s somewhat more permissive a policy than its predecessor ban, which was implemented in 2003 — several years before the rise of smartphones — and made an exception only for high school students at lunch.
Whereas the 2003 policy focused enforcement on device confiscation and other disciplinary action, the new ban relies more heavily on positive behavior interventions and supports and on restorative justice practices.
The new policy provides for enforcement options including verbal reminders, referrals to a counselor and contacting a student’s parent or guardian.
Teachers can also confiscate and hold onto a student’s phone, or have administrators keep it until the end of the day. And students who repeatedly violate the ban can lose access to school events or extracurricular activities.
Local education agencies are required to adopt policies to restrict cellphone use during the school day by next summer under a law co-authored by local Assemblymember David Alvarez and enacted last year. All districts and charter schools statewide must adopt such a policy in collaboration with students, family and school staff.
Cellphone restrictions in schools have become more popular nationwide as concerns grow about the impacts of social media and bullying on young people. Like California, dozens of states now require school districts to restrict cellphone use. And nearby in California, Los Angeles Unified expanded its own phone ban last year.
San Diego Unified’s new policy isn’t very different from the old one. But Joseph Cruz, the district’s former student trustee who recently graduated, said the old policy was inconsistently enforced across the district.
“Nearly every student would share that their school had a different phone policy — some enforced a complete ban, while others were less strict,” he said.
Hazan raised similar concerns about the new policy.
“How are we going to ensure that every site implements this policy consistently, when the last policy — which was almost the same — was not implemented consistently?” she said.
Bagula pointed to a communication toolkit the district is sharing with schools with tips for how to present the policy — including a website with information and family-friendly articles, plus messaging on the dangers of social media.
And she said teachers have expressed that they need a policy in place to enforce. “It’s how we communicate our expectations as well,” she said.
But enforcing any such phone ban presents other challenges for school districts as well.
Students will find creative ways to skirt bans, and teachers can lose valuable classroom time to having to enforce them, said Troy Flint, a spokesperson for the California School Boards Association.
Many parents want access to their kids at all times, and it’s often not clear to parents and staff who is responsible for lost or damaged phones.