LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) released a report detailing what the district’s cell phone ban will look like.
Last June, the LAUSD School Board voted in favor of banning phones and social media during the school day. On the same day, Governor Gavin Newsom announced he wants to restrict students’ cell phone usage, stating “excessive cell phone use increases anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues.” Newsom’s declaration came the day after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms regarding their effects on young people.
The ban will go into effect Feb. 18, about a month later than originally announced, LA Times reports. It will also apply to smart watches and any other device that can be used to send messages, receive calls, or use the internet. Phones will not be allowed during lunch or breaks, like some districts with cell phone restrictions have allowed. However, phones can be used on campus before and after school hours.
Each campus will decide what the ban will look like through meetings with local school leadership councils made up of parents, teachers, staff, student representatives, and community members, according to MSN.
How Will Cell Phones Be Stored?
Schools will decide how the devices will be stored but the “minimal expectation is that the device is turned off and stored,” Andres Chait, LAUSD’s chief of school operations, said during a meeting with the school board Tuesday. Phones cannot be put on silent or vibrate mode, he added.
The new report, released by the district Tuesday, says storage options include students storing phones in their backpacks, keeping them in locked storage units, placing them in magnetic locked pouches, storing them in Velcro pouches, or placing them in a “classroom phone holder” that would hang on a wall and have numbered pockets where phones are placed before class begins.
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LAUSD’s Division of School Operations & Procurement will provide one-time funding for any equipment or products needed for storage. The total cost will depend on the storage methods schools choose, but the district has allocated roughly $7 million. Chait said the estimate is based in part on an assumption that most elementary schools — of which the district has approximately 400 — will not need storage solutions since student phone use is rare. Schools must decide on their storage method before winter break in December, and the district will then place bulk orders.
Accessing Cell Phones During an Emergency
Various LAUSD stakeholders, including parents, students, and staff, have voiced concerns regarding access to cell phones during an emergency. LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson said online surveys conducted in his district showed emergencies were a top concern.
“Parents are very focused on reaching their students in the event of an emergency,” he said.
Whichever way individual schools choose to store cell phones, LAUSD said the policy allows students to have their phones readily accessible to use during an emergency, which falls in line with state guidelines under California’s Phone-Free School Act, a bill signed into law by Newsom in September. The law goes into effect July 1, 2026.
“If a student (or parent) requests that the student be allowed to use their smartphone due to a ‘perceived threat of danger’, then the school will convene a threat assessment, develop a safety plan, etc., before allowing the use of the phone,” says the report.
When Board Member Rocio Rivas asked what constitutes an emergency, Chait said it will be up to each school to decide. In general, he said, students could only access phones during an emergency when “staff determines its safe to do so.” For example, a school lockdown by itself would not be a large enough emergency to allow students to access phones because they can be short, he said. If a lockdown was an hour or longer, Chait added, “that would be a situation where we would tell our folks, ‘Yes, go ahead and gives kids access to their phones.’”
Some community members have also shared concerns about how students with disabilities would be affected. LAUSD said there will be exceptions for students with health-based needs, students with education-based needs such as IEPs and 504s, students requiring language translation, and others with certain needs on a “local” basis.
How Will the Cell Phone Ban Be Enforced and Who Will Enforce It?
Teachers and their unions have raised concerns over how they would actually enforce the new rules, noting addressing students who violate the ban could take away instruction time. They also question who would be responsible for the discipline.
LAUSD’s plan says students will receive multiple warnings if they are caught breaking the rules. The first is a verbal reminder, followed by a “referral to a counselor,” and then outreach to a parent or guardian. Chait described the discipline plan as a “restorative, positive behavior approach.”
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On the contrary, some teachers said they look forward to students not being on their phones and having access to cameras during class time.
District leaders acknowledged that implementing the ban will be a profound change at its middle and high schools. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said school leaders were “methodical, careful and all-encompassing” as they studied options, noting it’s clear that students have become addicted to cell phones and that its a problem that “needs to come to an end.”
Chait said about 50 out of the 1,543 total schools in the district already have cell phone bans in place. Many of those campuses created their own policies before the districtwide rule was announced.
