(The Center Square) – A ban on students using smartphones took effect Tuesday in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The nation’s second largest school district voted 5-2 in June in favor of the ban on using cellphones, smartwatches, AirPods and earbuds during school hours. Students are required to keep their phones off and stored in bags or backpacks. 

Exceptions are allowed for medical needs, students with disabilities and emergencies.

“If you use it, you lose it, with confiscated devices picked up only by a parent or legal guardian in the Dean’s Office,” Palms Middle School said Friday on its website. The school noted the district’s ban matched one already in effect at the campus.

Critics of excessive cellphone use have said it distracts from learning and hurts social interaction.

“Cellphone use in schools has gotten out of control,” Jackie Goldberg, president of the LAUSD board, said in a news release announcing the ban. “It’s gotten to the point that students don’t talk face to face, but instead text one another when they’re sitting right next to each other!”

Board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin said it’s heart-breaking to see students sitting alone during lunchtime on their phones instead of talking to each other.

LAUSD joined other California school districts that enacted policies even before the legislature required them of all of the state’s public K-12 schools in a bill that passed last year.

In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 3216, the Phone-Free School Act, which requires every school district, charter school and county office of education in California to develop policies on cellphone limits by July 1, 2026. One of the bill’s authors, Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, said research shows smartphone use contributes to cyberbullying, depression and teenage anxiety.

A Pew Research study said 72% of the nation’s high school teachers and 33% of middle school instructors cited cellphone distractions as a major problem.

The Phone-Free School Act allows exceptions to cellphone limits for medical needs and emergencies.