The Los Angeles Unified School Board unanimously approved a policy Tuesday to limit student screen time starting in August.
The decision follows a board vote in the spring that required the district to create a policy to set up guardrails on the amount of time students should spend in front of a digital device.
District officials said that since May they’ve received feedback from nearly 19,000 members in the community. “Student focus and attention were the most frequently cited concerns, along with mental health and wellbeing, online safety, and privacy,” they said.
The changes include eliminating use of district-issued digital devices, like tablets and laptops, in the early years, from preschool through 1st grade. And for every other grade level, there will be daily or weekly maximum screen time limits:
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The policy allows exceptions for subject areas that heavily rely on computers, like computer science, graphic design, and yearbook, and for district and state assessments. It also allows unrestricted use when necessary for students with disabilities.
Board Member Nick Melvoin proposed a successful amendment to reduce the screen time limits for several grades and break up the limitations by subject starting in middle school.
“[It’s] much harder for teachers in secondary to coordinate across five or six subjects,” Melvoin said in explaining the change.
The policy also:
Board Vice President Rocío Rivas cautioned that the minute limits may discourage teachers from assigning multimedia projects, and adds the burden of monitoring student technology use.
“Schools may end up focusing on counting minutes, documenting usage, auditing classrooms instead of evaluating learning outcomes,” Rivas said.
The district says it’ll cost $4.25 million in one-time costs to buy laptop carts for elementary school classrooms, if each class opts in. And it’ll cost another $1 million annually for software that would track screen time and block content.
Yes
Recused
This policy is about school-issued devices, like laptops and iPads — not student cellphones.
During the pandemic, the district had moved to equip every student with a digital device in an effort to close digital equity gaps.
District officials noted that when adopting the policy, “caution is advised that efforts to close the digital divide for highest needs populations will be negatively impacted.”
Mireya Garcia, a mother and grandmother, told the board that her family shares a single computer at home.
“I don’t want them to lose access to tools that can help them read, to learn and to be successful,” Garcia said.
Board staff clarified the policy does not prevent students of any age from checking out a device for home use from their child’s school.
District analysts, however, also note research shows that device access alone doesn’t lead to better academic outcomes, but that it needs to be coupled with adult supervision and engagement.
“Because families vary widely in their ability to provide consistent supervision, unrestricted take-home devices raise equity concerns,” the district’s office of research and program evaluation wrote.
Representatives for the parent advocacy group Schools Beyond Screens, which had advocated for the policy, say it’s a good step, but more needs to be done around artificial intelligence.
“We’re setting a new standard for the rest of the country,” said Lila Byock, who founded the group. “From Atlanta, to D.C., to Houston, they’re all trying to do what we’re doing here today.”
Byock and other LAUSD parents associated with Schools Beyond Screens called on the board to reduce the minute limits for students and to adopt a moratorium on AI use until there’s more guidance from the district’s ad hoc committee on the subject.
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