Long Beach Unified has begun crafting a policy to restrict students’ cell phone use. It could be in place by the start of 2026.
School district staff plans to draft a policy for the Board of Education to review in July, LBUSD Program Administrator Christopher Itson told the board at its meeting Wednesday. Once approved, the district would roll out an education campaign about the policy in the fall 2025 semester and have it take effect at the start of the next calendar year, Itson said.
The policy, Itson said, is meant to be a districtwide means to address “excessive phone use [and] the addictive nature of social media,” Itson said.
The move comes after California passed a law that requires schools statewide to limit student phone use by July 1, 2026.
Right now, there is a patchwork of cell phone policies across LBUSD schools.
Some, including at Franklin, Stephens and Hamilton middle schools, have blanket restrictions in place, Itson said.
At other schools “there is no real consistency across classrooms so students become confused about how they can and can’t use their phones,” Lee Underwood, a teacher at Millikan High School, said at the meeting.
Underwood doesn’t allow any cell phone use in his classroom, he said, to create “an attentional sanctuary” that aims to protect students from anything “poaching valuable attentional resources.”
Elsewhere, the Los Angeles Unified School District banned cellphones, smartwatches and earbuds from the classroom starting this week.
LAUSD’s policy leaves it up to schools to choose the exact method of taking away the phones, whether they get stored in a certain classroom or whether the students are allowed to keep them in their backpacks.
About half use the honor system, while the other half use pouches, lockers or other devices to store students’ phones. LAUSD budgeted $7 million for schools to purchase those storage methods.
Under the LAUSD policy, schools must provide students access to their phones in case of an emergency.
In Long Beach, district staff is still in the information-gathering stage.
They’re researching existing practices within the district, examining what other school districts are doing and gathering feedback from students, teachers and parents.
They plan to hold town hall meetings in each Board of Education district in the coming months.
Boardmember Juan Benitez said he appreciated that staff was taking its time in developing a policy recommendation.
He pointed out that, during the pandemic, the district faced the opposite problem of not having enough technology in classrooms at certain schools.
Student Board Member Alana Arroyo said the education aspect of the rollout will be especially important to get students onboard.
“They need to understand why it’s being done and how this can benefit them too,” Arroyo said.
Studies show, Itson said, that excessive cell phone and social media use can lead to self-esteem issues, cyberbullying, learning loss, sleep disruption and more serious issues like depression and anxiety.
Any policy adopted by the Board of Education would likely have different guidelines for elementary, middle and high schools, Itson said.