The Coronado Unified School District is considering tightening its cell phone restrictions starting next school year.
The current district-wide phone policy was last updated in May 2025. It allows students to use phones during noninstructional time, with a teacher’s permission or in emergencies.
Some district leaders say it doesn’t go far enough to protect students from the drawbacks of phones and social media, especially at the middle school level.
“We need to find a better solution for the middle school students,” Coronado Middle School Principal Brooke Falar told the board Thursday.
The school has tried a few different ways to enforce the current policy, she said. One such attempt was requiring students to keep their phones off and in their backpacks.
“Unfortunately, that is too tempting for middle schoolers and was not successful,” Falar said.
The school has also tried requiring students to put cell phones in pouches during class. That helped, but students still had access to their phones at break and lunch.
Falar said she initially thought students might just use the time to text their parents.
“It's not just texting mom,” she told the board. “It's social media. It is breaking rules such as no videoing, no being on social media. Those are things that we're not able to control with hundreds of students at one time.”
Board members said they’re interested in setting different rules for elementary, middle and high school.
At the middle school, the district is considering using lockable pouches to enforce a “bell-to-bell” phone ban. They would cost more than $25,000, according to the district.
At a parent forum last month, Superintendent Karl Mueller said it could help “level the playing field” among students.
“We know that there are families in our community who have made the decision to not purchase their child a smartphone until a certain age,” he said. “We know that there are families who have purchased devices for their child but have very tight restrictions on those devices, and then families who allow their child unlimited access to those devices.”
He also cited studies that say phone bans lead to better attendance.
Mueller also addressed concerns about parents reaching their kids during emergencies. He pointed to the National Association of School Resource Officers, which supports “bell-to-bell” phone bans for a few reasons.
One is that sounds and light coming from phones can reveal hiding spots. Another is that too many phones could overload the cell phone network, limiting police communication.
A third is that inaccurate information from students might lead parents to rush to the school.
“We’ve experienced this in our district on a number of occasions over the past few years,” Mueller said at the forum.
District officials said that was a challenge in October, when a Coronado Middle School student stabbed a classmate. In a community safety presentation, they said parents went to the campus after their kids texted them. They said information shared between students and parents and on social media was “often secondhand and misinformed.”
The district has also considered using lockable pouches at the high school. High school students told the board Thursday they can use their phones during breaks responsibly.
Ella Mathis, a junior at the high school, referred to the district’s goal for students to be “life-ready.”
“While cell phone restriction at the middle school age is about building good habits, we are trying to build something different at the high school level,” she told the board. “We need to consider if ‘life ready’ should also include being able to know how to handle having a phone.”
Mueller said middle school could be a good place to try out the pouches. He says they could add them to the high school later if needed.
“We can always expand up and expand down,” he said.
District administrators plan to bring a full policy proposal to the board next month. Mueller said the goal is to have something in place at the start of the next school year.
