Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) passed a new resolution on Apr. 21 requiring a policy to limit device screen time in school, being the first major school district to do so and possibly setting a trend that other schools will follow. The resolution also banned first grade and younger from using devices, audit the district’s education technology contracts, required clarity on how parents can opt their students out of using technology in the classroom, and banned use of technology during break periods, among many other things.
“When we are intentional about how our students engage with technology, we invest in their focus, their health, and our future,” said LAUSD Board Member Tanya Ortiz Franklin.
The resolution was passed in major part with the help of the organization Schools Beyond Screens, which seeks to get schools to use technology in ways that improve education, not inhibit it. Another major concern of the organization is students using technology due to corporate sponsorships rather than genuine necessity or usefulness. Anya Meksin, Deputy Director of the organization said, “This is an historic reform that we hope will trickle down to the rest of the country very, very quickly”.
“In my opinion, students need to learn technology in today’s world, but it doesn’t need to be the primary tool used to deliver instruction. We need to have thoughtful discussions about limiting, but not eliminating, classroom technology.” said Scott Buller, PRJUSD’s Chief Technology Officer. Buller talked about how a district’s technology policy is like a pendulum, swinging back and forth on not enough to too much, too strict and not strict enough, until a sweet spot is found. “How do you prepare students for a future that involves technology without making them reliant upon it?”
Regarding the ban of devices during break periods Buller said, “I think that’s a very interesting thing … Lewis Flamson started with Yonder Bags, which stopped cell phone use during the school day, and that has had a very positive effect on both school culture and instruction”. However, it is a struggle to restrict personal technology and social media that was normalized during the Covid-19 pandemic.. “So as soon as we came back to in-person instruction, it was a difficult process to try to get back to what the norm was before COVID”.
In the end, Buller’s conclusion is clear. “As educators, we have to ask ourselves hard questions and do the hard work to change education in the face of the new technologies that exist in our world—And know when enough is enough and say, we still want you to learn tech, but it shouldn’t dominate everything we ask you to do”.
