As an older person who hasn’t been in school for 23 years, I’m surprised that schools nowadays are so lenient with it.

Graduated over 30 years ago. Rules, on paper, were the same for me back then. However, the rules were really only enforced when the student was using the device in class or was otherwise being disruptive with it. They didn’t try to enforce it on every kid with a set of headphones on because they’d have to suspend 3/4 of the school.

My guess is that over time, the same thing happened everywhere: More kids had more and more electronic devices, and as the years went on, support for rules banning them dropped more and more to the point where at least some districts have attempted to stop trying.