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For now, the existing laws are putting educators in an awkward situation. Many are adopting an "out of sight, I don't mind" approach. As long as the phones are off and hidden, adults are willing to look the other way. But if the phones ring in class or are seen during school hours, they are confiscated and parents are often called to retrieve them. Teachers have also become conscious of how the text-messaging function on cellphones and two-way pagers can be used to cheat on tests. Repeated infractions can lead to disciplinary action.

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Spencer Oliver, the 17-year-old son of Susan Oliver, says he does not "have enough fingers and toes to count" the number of times his phone has been confiscated at La Jolla High. His Palm organizer was also taken away once because it made noise in class. While he understands why his gadgets have been confiscated, he says the big problem is when his parents are asked to retrieve the gadgets.

"Sometimes my mom will not be in town, and my dad doesn't have time to get it because he works all day, so I won't have my phone for a week," he said.

After Virginia removed its ban, parents pressured the Hampton school district to allow students to carry cellphones but not to use them. That policy, introduced during the last school year, created headaches for Ms. Brooks, Bethel High's principal.

"For me, it's been more disruptive than it has been helpful," said Ms. Brooks, who has punished six students for cellphone infractions.

She said that a student recently called the school office and said some "inappropriate things" to a teacher on the phone. The school phone had caller ID, however. School administrators told students to take out and turn on their cellphones and Ms. Brooks then called the number.

"The one that rang was the one that had done it," Ms. Brooks said. "Adults are smarter than kids give us credit for."

But phones are not the only problem. Not too long ago Ms. Brooks found a student watching a portable DVD player in the cafeteria. She told him to put it away since it violated the school's policy against electronic equipment on campus.

"I was like, `Whoa, I can't even afford one of those,' " she joked, but she can foresee a day when many students can, presenting another potential disruption for principals to contend with.

Not only are small electronic gadgets distracting but they are also, well, small. They snuggle in backpacks. They slide into coat pockets. That means gadgets can be unobtrusive when they have to be but also have a nasty habit of disappearing.

"They are expensive, fairly small, hand-held, easy to misplace," said H. Stephen Hewlett, the superintendent of the Duneland school district in Chesterton, Ind.

Game Boys have become more popular in Duneland elementary schools over the last two years, becoming a distraction for both students and teachers. "They were being stolen and misplaced," Mr. Hewlett said. "We were spending a lot of time determining which Game Boy belonged to whom." So Duneland recently imposed an elementary school ban on video games, cellphones and portable music players.

Administrators and teachers say they do not want to be the gadget police, but since many state and local bans also apply to school events like football games, dances and class trips they sometimes have no choice.

Schools regularly conduct searches for drugs, alcohol and weapons before dances and games. Cellphones and other gadgets inevitably turn up in purses and pockets and are confiscated by the dozens — even hundreds. ("We were collecting boxes of them," Mr. Shelburne said.)

Kecoughtan High School in Hampton, Va., confiscates gadgets from students during metal-detector searches. "We cleaned them out last year," said Mr. Baker, the principal. "We could have opened up a Radio Shack with the ones they had."

But confiscating expensive gadgets carries some risks. Once the school lost a CD player and had to reimburse the student for $80. "Once we log it in, we are still responsible for it," Mr. Baker said.

Administrators say that gadget bans may become harder to enforce as the line blurs between entertainment devices and ones that promote productivity. Hand-held organizers are merging with cellphones (like the Handspring Treo), cellphones are mixing with downloadable music ( Motorola V2282), organizers become game machines — with the right software — and many laptop computers come with DVD players for watching movies.

"What happens when everything is wrapped into this one little electronic instrument?" asked Mr. Shelburne of La Jolla High. "I don't know what I am going to do."