California’s recent law needs schools to restrict phone employ

California handleor Gavin Newsom signed the Phone-Free School Act into law this week, requiring every school didisconnecte, charter school, and county office of education stateexpansive to carry out rules restricting cell phone employ by July 1st, 2026. There are exceptions to the rule, including using phones for aelevatencies or with perignoreion under confident circumstances.

“We comprehend that excessive intelligentphone employ incrrelieves anxiety, depression, and other mental health rehires — but we have the power to interfere,” shelp Newsom in a statement.

This comes as other states appreciate New York ponder pursuing legislation for a total ban on phones in schools. It’s part of a wave of laws centering tech-rcontent child shieldedty at the state and national level, including the Kids Online Safety Act, as well as age-gating laws in places appreciate Texas.

As written, Assembly Bill 3216 says schools shall “broaden and adchoose, and shall refresh every five years, a policy to restrict or ban the employ by its pupils of intelligentphones” as extfinished as they’re at a school site or under the supervision of school employees. It portrays the goal as promoting “evidence-based employ of intelligentphone trains to aid pupil lgeting and well-being” and says it should be “responsive to the exceptional needs and desires of pupils, parents, and educators in each community.”

It also says schools can carry out “enforcement mechanisms” that restrict access to phones.

The California School Boards Association resistd the recent law, arguing it’s redundant and forced decision-creaters to adchoose policies redisconnecteing cell phones even if it was set up that there was no need, as The New York Times telled.

According to EducationWeek’s tracker, at least 15 states have inserted laws or policies around redisconnecteing students’ employ of cell phones in schools.