Los Angeles public schools will ban screens for their youngest learners and limit device usage for other students, marking one of the most aggressive attempts to restrict the amount of time children spend on devices at school.
The new rules, approved on Tuesday, will be phased in starting in August following backlash to the devices districts nationwide have spent billions on since the coronavirus pandemic. The Los Angeles school board had passed a resolution in April that required the district to limit students’ screen time.
No screen time will be permitted for children until they’re in second grade. From then until fifth grade, the cap allowed per day will be set at 60 minutes.
Middle-schoolers will be limited to six hours of screen time each week, and high-schoolers will not be allowed to spend more than 10 hours weekly on screens. The limits include time spent on homework.
Students will also be told to leave devices at school unless their parents object.
Other school systems have also sought to limit the time students spend using electronic devices. Iowa will place hour-long screen-time caps on elementary-schoolers starting in the 2027-28 school year. The San Diego Unified School District also passed new screen-time rules on Tuesday, including a policy barring students from using YouTube.
But the efforts in Los Angeles, which has the country’s second-largest public school district, are some of the most prescriptive and will take effect sooner than other policies.
It “is going to be the basis of reform across the country, if not the world,” said Nick Melvoin, a Los Angeles Unified School District board member.
School districts have embraced technology over the past decade, but more students had access to school-issued devices during the pandemic. By 2025, 88 percent of public schools reported in a federal survey that every child had been given a laptop, tablet or similar device.
The technology was meant to give every student access to digital literacy skills, personalized learning, artificial-intelligence tutors and other tools that would enhance learning, said T. Philip Nichols, an associate professor of English education at Baylor University.
However, some have been dissatisfied with the lack of progress. For example, 9- and 13-year-olds are worse off in math than they were a decade ago, federal testing data shows.
“When those problems exist, and maybe even get exacerbated, I think there’s probably some mix of frustration and concern,” Nichols said.
The district will block students’ access to YouTube, social media, streaming platforms and non-approved gaming sites.
Parents in Los Angeles have been pushing the public school district for about a year to reduce screen time.
“We’re setting a new standard for the rest of the country,” Lila Byock, founder of Schools Beyond Screens, a Los Angeles-based parent group, said Tuesday. “From Atlanta to D.C. to Houston, they’re all trying to do what we’re doing here today.”
Next, the group’s leaders said they want the district to implement a moratorium on AI until a committee can study its benefits.
Other advocates voiced concerns about how the policy may affect the district’s most vulnerable students, including children with disabilities who rely on assistive technology. Students learning English, who make up 20 percent of the Los Angeles school system, often use devices at school for language support.
For some students, school may be the only time they can use a computer.
“For many LAUSD families, school-issued devices and digital learning tools are not just supplemental resources, they are essential resources,” said Luis Lopez, policy and advocacy coordinator at Alliance for a Better Community, a nonprofit organization. “Reducing access without considering the realities many families face could widen gaps between students who have technology and internet access at home and those who do not.”
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