By Daniel Trotta<\/p>\n
April 21 (Reuters) – Los Angeles’ school board on Tuesday passed a measure regulating students\u2019 screen time during classroom assignments, reflecting \u200cconcerns that technology could be linked to a host of ailments including \u200cobesity and depression.<\/p>\n
The school board of the nation’s second-largest school district approved the measure by a \u200b6-0 vote with one recusal, making the Los Angeles Unified School District among the first in the nation to create systemwide, grade-by-grade limits on classroom screen time.<\/p>\n
“Along with the cellphone ban the L.A. Unified School District passed in 2024, we \u200chope to be a national \u2060leader on these matters,” said board member Nick Melvoin, who sponsored the measure, through a spokesperson.<\/p>\n
Proponents said the policy was meant \u2060to strike a balance between instructional needs and growing concerns that excessive screen exposure is harming students\u2019 attention and social development.<\/p>\n
The district, which serves about half a \u200bmillion students, \u200bhas relied heavily on laptops and tablets \u200bsince the coronavirus pandemic of \u200c2020 accelerated digital learning.<\/p>\n
“While access to and developing skills in technology are critical in a digital world, excessive screen time can be associated with vision problems, increased anxiety and depression, addictive behavior, reduced attention span, difficulty managing emotions, lower academic achievement and weaker cognition according to the American Academy of Pediatrics,” the \u200cresolution said.<\/p>\n
The measure cited research indicating that children \u200b8 to 11 years old who exceed screen \u200btime recommendations are at higher \u200brisk for obesity and score lower on cognitive assessments.<\/p>\n
The resolution \u200cdoes not immediately ban devices or \u200bmandate a uniform time \u200blimit. Instead, it calls on district staff to develop age-appropriate guidelines with input from educators, families and public health experts. Until then, existing school-level \u200brules will remain in \u200cplace.<\/p>\n
Skeptics cautioned that screen limits must be implemented carefully to avoid \u200bharming students with disabilities who rely on technology.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta \u200bin Carlsbad, California; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Daniel Trotta April 21 (Reuters) – Los Angeles’ school board on Tuesday passed a measure regulating students\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[120469,48,52,51,47,50,49,35316,37318],"class_list":["post-279699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-classroom-assignments","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-school-board","tag-school-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}