California’s novel law insists schools to restrict phone include

California administeror Gavin Newsom signed the Phone-Free School Act into law this week, requiring every school didisjoine, charter school, and county office of education statewide to carry out rules restricting cell phone include by July 1st, 2026. There are exceptions to the rule, including using phones for materializencies or with perleave oution under certain circumstances.

“We comprehend that excessive cleverphone include incrrelieves anxiety, depression, and other mental health rerents — 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 aiming tech-rcontent child defendedty 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 “enbig and adselect, and shall modernize every five years, a policy to restrict or ban the include by its pupils of cleverphones” as lengthy as they’re at a school site or under the supervision of school includeees. It depicts the goal as promoting “evidence-based include of cleverphone trains to aid pupil lgeting and well-being” and says it should be “responsive to the distinctive necessitates and desires of pupils, parents, and educators in each community.”

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

The California School Boards Association resistd the novel law, arguing it’s redundant and forced decision-producers to adselect policies redisjoineing cell phones even if it was set up that there was no necessitate, as The New York Times alerted.

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