ACSA school leaders met with Gov. Gavin Newsom, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom and others Nov. 19 at the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento, where Newsom hosted a roundtable on school smartphone restriction policies.

The roundtable followed Newsom’s signing of two ACSA-supported bills that compliment cellphone restrictions in schools — SB 976, which targets social media companies’ addictive feeds sent to minors — and SB 1504, which provides greater accountability for harmful content posted on platforms which are reported by school administrators.

ACSA Pres. Rafael Plascencia, Executive Director Edgar Zazueta and superintendents Diego Ochoa (San Mateo-Foster City School District) and Hilda Maldonado (Santa Barbara Unified School District) represented ACSA at the briefing, which members of the California Teachers Association and California Teachers Federation also attended.

The ACSA representatives emphasized the importance of existing school safety plans and ensuring that updated smartphone policies do not contradict them. Many safety plans restrict cellphone use for students as a best practice to avoid misinformation being shared about threats on campus and to allow emergency and first responders to access and evacuate the site.

ACSA also reported feedback from members who expressed the need for local smartphone policies to reflect the school community, and said the association was ready to partner with districts to assist the policy adoption process.