For the new 2024-2025 school year, the LAUSD school board decided to extend their no phones rule to also encompass before and after school hours. This is completely unfair to students, as before and after school hours should be a student's time to relax, hang out with friends, do homework, etc. Not allowing students to use their phone during school is perfectly fine, as it takes away from academic time, but what reason is there to disallow students from using their own devices when school isn't in session? What happens when a student has to stay two hours after school and doesn't have homework or anything else to do in the meantime? Additionally, there is a school violence epidemic currently going on in this country. What if some schools disallow students from contacting their loved ones during a lockdown thanks to this rule? Also, since the rule requires phones to be off and in bags all day, students are instructed to abandon them (and thus abandon access to their families) in the event of a fire, or other type of evacuation.

Schools may argue that time before and after school is better spent doing homework or going to office hours. Our entire lives do not revolve around academics, and when school's out, we just want to relax a little bit and do something unrelated. This also raises the concern that students may leave campus after school and spend their time somewhere else in public to bypass this rule, which is not completely safe.

Schools should be prioritizing what really matters: safety and support for both students and teachers. This new phone rule doesn't help anyone, and coming during a time when many parents are concerned about being able to contact their children at any time in case of an emergency, is just in poor taste.