Is LAUSD's cellphone ban working? Here's what we know after one semester

Four months after the Los Angeles Unified School District banned cellphones in its schools, the general consensus among students, teachers and administrators is that there are fewer visible phones during the school day and more interaction between students.

Venice High School math teacher Jessica Quindel said she noticed an immediate change in her students on the day the ban started in February.

“It was almost like you had given them a sugar high, they were bouncing off the walls,” Quindel said.

She offered stress balls and other fidget toys to occupy students' hands and used grant funding to purchase “flexible seating.” Students can choose to sit on a bouncy medicine ball on wheels, a couch, or an intentionally wobbly stool instead of a traditional desk chair.

“It's a challenge, but it's a good one because it means that kids are not looking at their phones, and instead they're trying to learn,” Quindel said.

At the same time, students and educators say students aren’t necessarily following the rules as they were originally laid out.

“ People still bring their phones to school, they just don't get caught,” said Sophia, a Venice High sophomore. “The more rules you enforce, the sneakier people get. The more you imply that you don't trust students, the more they give you a reason not to trust them.”

Listen • 46:11

Listen • 46:11

Did the cellphone ban in high schools work?

On February 18th, 2025, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest public school district in the country, implemented an all-day cell phone ban for its students. Now that it’s the end of the school year, we head to Venice High School to see how the ban actually went.

The backstory of LAUSD’s cellphone ban

The LAUSD Board voted in June 2024 to expand the district’s existing phone ban to include lunch and passing periods (“bell to bell”). The policy also applies to smartwatches and earbuds.

Board members cited rising concerns about the effect of phones and social media on youth mental health, bullying and distraction from classroom instruction.

Two months later, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that requires districts state-wide to adopt similar policies by July 2026. California is one of at least 24 states, as well as D.C., that require school districts to ban or restrict the use of phones in schools.

LAUSD offered schools different ways to implement the ban and set aside $7 million for lockers, pouches and other devices to separate students from their phones. A district spokesperson said in a statement that about half of schools chose to rely instead on the “honor system” and require students to keep their phones turned off and in their backpacks.

It’s unclear how much of the money was spent. LAist requested invoices related to the policy’s implementation in April through California’s public records law, but has yet to receive them.

‘It’s a challenge, but it’s a good one’

Venice High School’s 2,300 students were supposed to stow phones in a portable lockers stored in their sixth-period classes.

Sophia was one of a few students in her class who relinquished their phones initially, but she said she stopped after about two weeks.

“ I don't use it throughout the day — I really don't,” Sophia said. “But I just, I feel safer knowing that my property is like, in my bag.”

She said the phone ban has been more of an inconvenience than anything. She’s in multiple extracurriculars, including the school newspaper.

“ I want to give respect to my teacher, and I'm there to learn. I understand that,” Sophia said. “But during my free time, during lunch and nutrition, when I have the perfect opportunity to send out communications to get stuff that I need to be done, done, there is no reason for me to still have my phone locked in a box.”

Sophia’s average screen time is the same as it was before the ban, about four hours a day.

But other students reported the ban did change their behavior at school.

Venice junior Chris said that although he didn’t put his phone in the locker, he also wasn’t using it during the school day, for example to play video games during lunch.

 ”I was afraid to get it taken away by my teachers because there was still punishments that you would get if you got caught with it too many times,” Chris said.

Instead, he spent more time talking with his friends and noticed his peers doing the same.

But he has noticed another change: In February, he said his screentime averaged five hours a day. By the end of the school year his phone use had crept up to eight hours a day.

Most of that time is spent on TikTok, but Chris also spends hours in the photos app.

“ I just like to reminisce on memories I've taken with my phone,” he said. Among the nearly 10,000 pictures he’s taken since 2020 are images of his recent birthday party at his grandmother’s home and trips to Brazil to visit family.

Math teacher Quindel said the support of a district-wide policy has helped her feel less like the “phone police” in her individual classroom, but lunch, nutrition and passing periods remain a challenge, especially given the other responsibilities teachers have.

A Walter Reed Middle School student holds the pouch where she is required to store her phone during the school day as part of LAUSD's cell phone policy.

(

Zaydee Sanchez

/

LAist

)

“ We have thousands of kids here, and there's not that many adults to be able to intervene,” Quindel said.

Quindel said discussions are underway at Venice as to whether the school will continue trying to require students to store phones at the beginning of the day, or switch to a different strategy.

Students have reportedly found ways to circumvent the phone policy at other schools, for example by storing a dummy phone in the pouch or breaking the locks.

It’s not yet clear on a classroom or district-wide level whether the policy is helping students learn more.

“ I teach data science, so I have a very hard time saying that I have any kind of controlled experiment to say that there's a link between their grades and the cellphone policy,” Quindel said.

But she did mention a few individual cases where students told her that the phone ban helped them focus in class.

LAist requested an interview with anyone at LAUSD who might be able to speak to how the policy has been implemented district-wide and received a statement from a spokesperson.

“While the district has not completed a formal assessment since initializing our implementation of a variety of phone-free policies this semester, our school sites are reporting improved socialization and engagement during the school days and minimal to no disruption,” the spokesperson wrote.

Nick Melvoin, an LAUSD board member and major supporter of the ban, said faculty interested in studying how LAUSD schools are implementing the phone ban have contacted his office.

Researchers, including several at Stanford, have launched a national survey to try to better understand how phone bans are being implemented throughout the country and expect to share initial findings before the start of next school year.

“We want the world to see that this is a really important policy,” Melvoin said. “I think we will all, as educators and educational leaders, look back in a few years and be like, how did we ever let cellphones in schools?”

Listen • 46:11

Listen • 46:11

Did the cellphone ban in high schools work?

On February 18th, 2025, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest public school district in the country, implemented an all-day cell phone ban for its students. Now that it’s the end of the school year, we head to Venice High School to see how the ban actually went.