The Los Angeles unified school district headquarters building in Los Angeles in 2021. Photograph: Damian Dovarganes/APView image in fullscreenThe Los Angeles unified school district headquarters building in Los Angeles in 2021. Photograph: Damian Dovarganes/APLos Angeles school board votes to set limits on classroom screen timeMeasure will also limit device use during passing periods, lunch and recess and block YouTube on district devices
The Los Angeles unified school district’s board passed a resolution on Tuesday to curb students’ classroom screen time for the upcoming school year, in the latest effort nationwide to address adverse effects from excessive device use.
The measure, which passed 6-0 at a Tuesday school board meeting, will set daily and weekly screen time limits for students based on grade level, prohibit elementary and middle school students from using devices during passing periods, lunch and recess, and block use of YouTube on district devices, among other provisions.
Pending board approval, the new screen time policy will go into effect for the 2026-2027 school year.
LAUSD is the second-largest district in the nation with more than 520,000 enrolled students. Students in the district have access to Chromebooks and iPads for online learning.
The resolution’s co-sponsors cited research from the American Academy of Pediatrics linking excessive screen time to increased anxiety and depression, difficulty with emotional regulation, lower academic achievement and reduced attention span. The academy has not set a specific screen time limit for adolescents, due to a lack of evidence about the benefit of such parameters.
The organization recommended parents introduce screen-free time into their households and encouraged them to seek out “high-quality content”, digital media that helps with school subjects and social development, for their children.
Read moreProponents of the LAUSD school board resolution hope a precedent will be set for the rest of the country.
“I believe that we have the opportunity to lead the nation to establish comprehensive, developmentally grounded screen time limits that put students before screens,” said Nick Melvoin, a school board member who co-sponsored the resolution. “We know that tech is not going away and can be a powerful tool in the classroom. It’s not about going backwards. This is about rethinking school time.”
School Beyond Screens, a coalition of parents and educators that pushed for the measure’s passage, applauded the move in a statement.
“We anticipate that teachers will need support in making a shift away from the ineffective, unproven edtech products that were thrust into their hands, and we urge the District to commit to professional development, additional planning time, and the funding of textbooks and tactile learning materials,” they wrote.
The resolution comes two years after California governor Gavin Newsom signed the Phone-Free School Act, which mandates that every school district adopt a policy to limit or prohibit smartphone use by 1 July 2026.
LAUSD superintendent Alberto M Carvalho, who has been on paid leave amid an FBI investigation, appeared hesitant to impose sweeping screen time restrictions at a September board meeting.
“Before we get to a point where we unilaterally say let’s aggressively restrict access, let’s consider that restricting to some means eliminating,” he said then, raising concerns around the equity of such policies.
“Do we have a problem specific to digital tool addiction in America? Yes, we do. Schools are not the reason. Not even close. Parental responsibility is very much a part of this equation. Period.”
The Los Angeles school board measure may be the first of its kind for a major school district, but there has been a wave of other educator- and parent-led movements in both Republican- and Democratic-leaning states to reconsider the use of education technology.
