SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom sent letters to school districts on Tuesday urging them to limit students’ smartphone use on campus, a move that comes amid an ongoing national debate about the impact of social media on the mental health of children and teens.

In South Carolina, the State Board of Education has approved guidelines requiring local school districts to ban cellphone use during class, but postponed a final vote until next month to allow more time to develop the proposal. The effort is part of a broader push by officials in Utah, Florida, Louisiana and elsewhere to restrict cellphone use in schools.

But progress is not always easy. Many schools already ban cell phones, but this is not always enforced. And some parents have expressed concerns that the ban could mean they could lose contact with their children in an emergency.

Districts should “act now” to help students focus in school by limiting their smartphone use, Newsom said in the letter. He also cited risks to young people’s well-being, an issue that received renewed attention in June after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy urged Congress to mandate warning labels on social media platforms.

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“Every classroom should be a place of focus, learning and growth,” Newsom, a Democrat, said in his letter. “By working together, educators, administrators and parents can create an environment where students are fully engaged in their education, free from the distractions of phones and the pressures of social media.”

Newsom announced earlier this summer that he wanted to address student smartphone use, and his letter said he was working with the state legislature on the issue. Tuesday’s announcement is neither a mandate nor tied to school funding. But it does give districts the impetus to act.

Newsom signed a law in 2019 giving districts the authority to regulate students’ smartphone access during school hours.

The debate about banning cell phones in schools to improve academic performance is not new, but authorities often resort to bans rather than looking for ways to integrate digital devices as learning tools, says Antero Garcia, a professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education.

“What surprises me is society’s inability to move forward and find solutions other than continually coming back to the discussion of ‘should we ban devices?’ as the primary solution to something that hasn’t worked,” Garcia said.

“The proposal to restrict cell phone use in schools is a great idea,” he added. “What that means for middle school teachers next week, when classes start again in many schools, is a very different matter.”

Some schools and districts in California have already taken action. The Santa Barbara Unified and Los Angeles Unified school districts have enacted bans on cell phone use by their students in recent years.

But some school board officials say the state should not go further and pass a blanket ban on cellphone use. That decision should be left up to districts, said Troy Flint, spokesman for the California School Boards Association.

“Cell phone and social media use on campus is certainly a serious issue and deserves close scrutiny,” Flint said. “But these decisions are very specific to specific schools and specific communities and need to be made at the local level.”

There is no silver bullet to protect students from the risks posed by smartphones, but the state is “starting a discussion” about how districts could act, said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association. Teachers and students should be included in conversations about rules, Goldberg said.

South Carolina lawmakers passed a temporary, one-year rule in the state budget this summer that requires schools to ban cellphone use by their students or lose state funding. Schools have until early 2025 to enforce their specific rules and penalties for violating those rules.

Education officials rushed to draft the proposal so that districts would have time to adapt their own rules to state guidelines.

But state committee chairman David O’Shields said Tuesday there was no need to rush and give districts “liquid eggs” when they could spend a little more time developing the rules and get more input from teachers, parents and administrators.

“Let’s cook the eggs right,” said O’Shields. “I want a good omelet.”

O’Shields was particularly convinced by Jennifer Rainville of the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center, who pointed out that more than 100,000 students were excluded from classes last school year. She said the rules should be as specific as possible to distract districts from this punishment.

“The last thing we need is cell phone policies that give students an easy way out if they have to stay away from class for a day when they are supposed to be in the classroom,” O’Shields said.

There are also questions about whether cell phones should be banned not only during classes but also during bus rides or field trips.

“Let’s give kids back a distraction-free childhood,” said Matthew Ferguson, deputy superintendent of the state Department of Education.

A brief survey of South Carolina teachers in May found that 92% supported limiting cellphone access in classrooms and 55% called for a complete ban. Education Secretary Ellen Weaver’s survey also found that 83% of teachers believe cellphones are a daily distraction from learning, the education department wrote in a memo to the board.

Jeffrey Collins contributed to this report from West Columbia, South Carolina.