Opinion: Strict laws make for sneaky students: LAUSD needs to revoke the cellphone ban

The Los Angeles school board approved a plan Tuesday to ban cellphones on campus, which would take effect as soon as January 2025. This means even rising seniors, like myself, will be affected.

I believe the ban is not only ridiculous, but unrealistic.

A student needs access to their phone to contact their parents in case of an emergency, or for daily communication. Phones also allow students to access information and valuable tools such as calculators, or school communication apps like Schoology and Remind.

In our modern society, students need their phones, no matter how unhappy it makes the school board.

LAUSD’s current policy prohibits student cellphone use “on campus during normal school hours or school activities, excluding the students’ lunchtime or nutrition breaks.” The policy leaves it up to each school to decide if they want to adopt stricter policies.

But when you walk into any LAUSD school, you’ll see none of the rules LAUSD fought so hard to pass back in 2011 get followed anywhere across L.A. This time, the district is approving complete removal of cellphones from classrooms.

The school district and board members are all for cellphone free classes and schools, explaining the ban will lead to increased mental health, social interaction and overall performance.

Yet as an LAUSD student, I experience these classes and “cellphone plagued zones” more than any board member.

While these board members have a point — students are on their phones often and this can lead to many issues — the challenge when considering a full cellphone ban is that it’s never going to be possible.

Students are going to be on their phones during class, no matter how many signs the school district sends telling us it’s not allowed.

If LAUSD plans to tell students they can not be on their phones at all during the school day, and somehow figure out a way to strictly enforce it, students will still be on their phones, they’ll just learn how to not get caught.

Students will begin to sneak phones into their laps, into their textbooks or into restrooms, just to keep up to date with their fellow students, who are also sneaking their cellphones out all across campus.

To enforce the ban, LAUSD will search students as they enter classrooms, or force students to leave their phones in lockers that are closely monitored, according to the L.A. Times.

LAUSD might believe they have fool-proof plans to force students to place phones in lockers, and keep them inaccessible until tapped on a magnetic device exiting campus. Yet the district has no chance of realistically enforcing these rules to get the perfect phone-free schools they want, no matter how many board members vote for it to happen.