Public or private?
I've got a lot of insight into local school districts in my area and a little into local private schools (good ones—not poor-quality evangelical schools for parents who don't want their kids taught about evolution, or something like that) and the public schools have all completely given up on policing phones and wouldn't dare suggest that parents ought not be giving their 3rd graders smartphones, while the private schools both police them more heavily and seem to serve way fewer families inclined to give preteens a smartphone to begin with.
Feels like the beginning of an even-greater class divide in education, to me.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/us/california-math-curric...
Not sure about other public schools in our area, but I suspect this type of enforcement is only possible if the majority of families are on board.
My kid doesn't have a phone. But we get inundated with these emails and new plans on what to do and so on.
I wish they'd just confiscate them and only return them to the parents, or have some sort of phone not allowed without good reason (and revoke it if someone breaks the rules), but they seem averse to that kind of thing. The new rule is that they have to be powered off during school hours. I'm sure that will be complied well by the same students who already don't care.
A lot of parents will throw a fit if schools try to take them away or ban them, and, contrary to public perception in some circles, public schools really hate upsetting parents. It's part of why private schools tend to have a lot more success enforcing phone-related rules or restrictions, since they can just tell a family to pound sand if they don't like it (they all have waiting lists anyway, if you're not some huge donor they don't need to give a shit what you think if it's not in-line with their approach and mission)