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Ed-Tech Policy Video

Los Angeles Unified Is Banning Cellphones: A Board Member Explains Why and How

By Arianna Prothero & Kaylee Domzalski — June 21, 2024 3:28
An 11-year-old boy plays with his father's phone outside school in Barcelona, Spain, on June 17, 2024. Parents across Europe are rallying to make it normal for young kids to live smartphone-free. From Spain to Ireland and the UK, groups are ballooning on chat groups like WhatsApp and agreeing to link arms and refuse to buy children younger than 12 smartphones.
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Los Angeles schools gave a major boost to the movement to ban cellphones in schools when the board of the second largest district in the country voted to do just that.

But passing a resolution is only the first step for the Los Angeles Unified School District—the hard part of implementation comes next. Like other districts that have taken this step, the school district must figure out how to address everything from parent pushback to the finer details of enforcing the policy.

To learn how the district plans to address these and other challenges, Education Week spoke with Los Angeles school board member Nick Melvoin, who wrote the resolution to ban cellphones that was passed on June 18.

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Laura Baker/Education Week via canva

Arianna Prothero covers technology, student well-being, and the intersection of the two for Education Week.
Kaylee Domzalski is a video producer for Education Week.
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