After years of pushing laptops and tablets into classrooms, Los Angeles Unified School District is changing course—ending device distribution for the youngest students, tightening screen limits, and auditing education-technology contracts. The move reflects a
For Los Angeles middle school teacher Anna Soffer, the shift has been sharp—and personal. “The idea was that technology is the future. so we need to put tech in every child’s hands. ” she said. Now. in her 6th grade English and history classes. she says the classroom has become a daily test of attention and limits.
Soffer supports pen-and-paper assignments, but she is required to use laptops and online apps for certain activities. “Every day, I’m battling, ‘Who would you rather listen to, Ms. Soffer or Minecraft?’” she said.
The confrontation over screens isn’t staying confined to one classroom. The Los Angeles Unified School District recently became the first major school district to say it will stop giving devices to its youngest students. The policy is part of a new screen-time plan taking effect in the fall across the country’s second-largest school system.
A resolution passed last month by the Los Angeles school board lays out multiple steps. It requires the district to eliminate devices until second grade. For all higher grades, it sets daily and weekly screen limits. On school devices, it blocks YouTube. And it bans the use of devices at lunch and recess in elementary and middle school.
The board also ordered an audit of the district’s education technology contracts, a figure the teachers union says amounts to $1.6 billion.
For advocates of the reset, the Los Angeles decision is more than a local policy tweak—it’s a signal that districts may be rethinking what they invested in during the last decade and especially during the pandemic.
Parents and teachers describe a problem that follows students home. For Katie Pace, a mother of three, the effort to limit screens at home is relentless: there is one family iPad and one television, no screen time during the week, and no screens allowed in bedrooms.
But as soon as Clementine, her 8th grade daughter, gets on the wifi-enabled school bus, Pace says the day turns digital.
“For the 30-minute ride to school, Clementine watches YouTube videos on her school Chromebook,” Pace said. In Spanish class, assignments are on the app Duolingo, but Pace says her daughter also uses Google Translate for answers. Clementine, she said, has also seen classmates playing games on phones that are supposed to be locked away.
In algebra, Clementine writes with her finger on a touch screen to solve equations. In history, Pace says quizzes, tests and writing assignments move to the computer. Pace says almost all homework is online now. Until recently, Clementine would come home and read a book; Pace says not anymore.
On her daughter’s device history. Pace says she sees her spending hours a day streaming music. making Spotify playlists. and watching makeup tutorials and cat videos on YouTube. “It makes me furious,” Pace said. “My daughter went to middle school and was sent home with a screen addiction in her backpack.”.
The policy shift in Los Angeles also comes as a wave of restrictions is gathering speed in state legislatures. At least 14 states have proposed laws to limit screen time in schools, according to Ballotpedia. And last week. the federal government issued an advisory warning that excessive screen use among youths is becoming a growing public health concern.
The backlash didn’t start only with fears about gaming or short attention spans. It grew out of a funding and access push that accelerated during COVID-19—when devices went from classroom add-ons to lifelines.
A decade ago, the idea of putting a device in every child’s hands and closing the “digital divide” began, but it gained speed during the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, education shifted online overnight. Schools raced to get students the devices needed to connect.
When the 2021-2022 school year started, 96% of U.S. public schools reported they had given digital devices to students who needed them. according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Many schools also switched funding away from textbooks, workbooks and paper printouts to digital alternatives. Educational technology, or edtech, exploded into a multibillion dollar industry.
Nick Melvoin, the LAUSD school board member who drafted the new resolution, described the early phase of the rollout as necessary. “During the pandemic, getting kids devices was a lifeline. Now, it’s time that we reset,” he said.
Melvoin said he believes few Los Angeles classrooms are using screens effectively in ways that benefit learning. Teachers, he said, too often replace instruction with online apps and use screens “as a crutch.”
The most complicated part of the debate, educators say, is that technology has become so intertwined with learning—especially for older students—that unplugging from screens at school is hard to do cleanly.
In the affluent Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. parents launched a petition campaign for the right to opt their children out of digital devices during school. citing questions about edtech’s benefits. The district has said that opting out is not possible. Alex Bird Becker. one of the founders of the group PA Unplugged. said. “If there’s really no evidence that it helps. and in fact there’s evidence that it’s harmful. what are we doing?. Test scores are at their lowest point.”.
Other districts say the decision also makes financial sense. Fresno Unified School District, the third-largest in California, is spending $4 million a year to repair and replace laptops. The district. partly to cut costs. has told its 40. 000 elementary school students to return their take-home laptops and will shift computer access to in-class only in the fall. spokesperson AJ Kato said.
In Simi Valley Unified School District, near Los Angeles, officials stopped sending devices home for younger students this year. A memo to parents said the change was partly because of costly repairs. but also because the devices were being used for “inappropriate Google searches” and video games. The district now stores the devices in carts at school.
In Arlington, Virginia, some of the loudest pushback is coming from parents who say the effects are showing up in everyday life, not just in policy debates.
On a recent Saturday night. parents gathered in living rooms to trade experiences about screen addictions and other side effects of school-issued devices. LuAnn Oliver hosted the group. “None of us are Luddites. I know that technology adds value. but I also don’t want my son on YouTube all the time. ” she said.
Oliver said her 6th-grade son struggles to keep track of online assignments and resist the temptation the iPad offers for video games. “We get reports on websites he’s visited. He’s visiting a game site in nearly every class,” she said.
Jenny Sullivan said she has noticed her 4th grade son capitalizing random letters and not getting corrected because there is so little work on paper. She worries about the social consequences as well: she said her 6th grader doesn’t want to go to the afterschool program because everyone is on their iPad. “I’d rather be home,” he tells his mother.
After a three-hour gathering. the parents made a plan to approach the school in the fall with a unified request to “opt-out of technology and opt-in to textbooks and paper.” One mother. Kristina Jackson. said. “Ten years from now. I can’t imagine us looking back with any other reaction than: How could we have been so naive that we just handed these devices to our kids.”.
Back in Los Angeles, the resolution’s details are designed to do more than reduce screen time. By stopping device distribution until second grade. setting daily and weekly screen limits for older grades. blocking YouTube. and banning device use at lunch and recess in elementary and middle school. the district is reshaping the routine—especially the moments when students previously had unfettered access.
The audit of education technology contracts, with the teachers union estimating the total at $1.6 billion, suggests the fight may soon move beyond classrooms into budgets and procurement.
For many parents and teachers, the stakes are not abstract. The core argument is that screens in schools have become too easy to slip from supervised learning into unsupervised distraction—turning a tool meant to bridge gaps into something families now have to work around every day.
school devices screen time Los Angeles Unified School District LAUSD Chromebook tablets edtech digital divide teachers union YouTube block student distraction parenting legislation advisory public health