If you’re not looking for it, you won’t notice, but go to a high school campus during lunchtime, and every other student seems to be tinkering with an iPod, cell phone, or both.

Except at San Marcos High School.

By instituting a ban on iPods and other MP3 players this year, the school could prove to be a local trendsetter.

Administrators at the Santa Barbara school district are recommending that the school board not only expand the ban to the district’s two other high schools, but also banish the use of cell phones during school hours.

Naturally, kids aren’t so hot on this idea, and parents tend to be lukewarm. But educators say the gadgets have become a disruption in the classroom. What’s more, they say, the electronics can pose a threat to safety, and even be used for nefarious purposes.

“Text messages are insanely out of control,” said Bud Andrews, an administrator at the district office who played a key role in crafting the proposed rules. He said the school board, which discussed the matter earlier this week, will take it up again later this spring.

Andrews said students can use cell phones to humiliate, perhaps by taking pictures of a classmate in the locker room and posting it online, or to cheat, perhaps by taking a picture of a test and sending it to a friend.

He admits the cell-phone ban could be a “tough sell,” noting that some school board members already have expressed skepticism. But Andrews stands by the recommendation.

“The idea is not to create a Nazi-like state or to send some draconian message,” he said. “Cell phones are a great thing, but like anything else, they need to be controlled.”

San Marcos High principal Craig Morgan said most of his faculty is supportive of the school’s ban on MP3 players.

Before the rule went into effect, teachers tended to complain about the disruption in the classroom, he said. Administrators, meanwhile, were vexed by how, during a recent drill exercise, an oblivious student wearing earbuds was wandering around the courtyard.

“It was a safety issue on campus,” Morgan said. “We wanted to make sure our kids could hear every direction given in an emergency situation.”

Many San Marcos students have easily adapted to the new rules.

“In a weird way, it kind of brought about more social communication,” said junior Aya Miyazaki.

But not all. Senior Derrick Haws said he has already had his iPod confiscated once by faculty.

“If it’s OK to be on your cell phone at lunchtime, why can’t you listen to your iPod?” he asked.

Apparently, many still do.

Senior Valerie Mehlschau said she still sees students surreptitiously listening to music in the halls. But “there’s definitely been a decrease in the use of MP3s during lessons,” she said.

At gadget-heavy Santa Barbara High, students winced when told of the possible ban.

“I think that would suck,” Dolores Bretado said while walking between classes, using one ear to listen to music and the other to converse to friends.

“School would be more boring,” ninth-grader Miguel Solis said while listening through earbuds to the late rapper Tupac Shakur, who was slain in a drive-by shooting during the 1990s.

“Music inspires everyday life,” agreed his friend, Miguel Munoz.

As for parents, many seem OK with the proposed ban on MP3 players, but would rather keep open the line of communication with their children via cell phone.

“It’s really nice, when you have a problem, to be able to communicate,” said Mary Lou Mankowski, who was waiting in her car to pick up her child after school. “Like when they say, ‘Hey mom, can you come with my homework real fast?’ I can’t think of how many times I’ve rescued them.”

Parent Frank Mendez said he purchased cell phones for all three of his kids.

“With all the kidnapping and the abductions, it’s good to have a phone just in case,” he said.

On the other hand, Linda Prosise understands the ban completely.

While waiting in her car for her nephew Thursday, Prosise said she had sent him a Valentine’s Day text earlier that morning.

“I thought he’d get back to me at lunch or between class, but he got back to me right away,” she said. “I even texted him back, ‘R U in school?’ He goes, ‘Yeah.’ I sent one back: ‘Hmm.’”

At Dos Pueblos High, a ringing phone in some classrooms means the scofflaw must buy doughnuts for the class the next day.

“I know of a couple classes that have gotten doughnuts,” said math teacher John Dent.

Like many teachers, Dent has a cell-phones-off policy in his classroom. Usually, he said, a disruptive ring tone is clearly the result of an honest mistake, revealed by the students’ blushing face and mad scramble to turn it off.

But some students are not as contrite. Dent sent one of them to Saturday school not so long ago.

“She got up and didn’t say a word to me,” he said. “She walked out the door and started talking to her boyfriend from another school.”