{"id":397460,"date":"2026-07-14T03:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T03:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/397460\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T03:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T03:28:12","slug":"california-school-districts-seek-money-changes-to-social-media-apps-in-lawsuits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/397460\/","title":{"rendered":"California school districts seek money, changes to social media apps in lawsuits"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was originally published by EdSource<\/a>. Sign up for their daily newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Top Takeaways<\/p>\n

School districts across the country are suing social media giants, alleging they have bled resources trying to address a student mental health crisis fueled by their platforms.<\/p>\n

Districts like Los Angeles Unified are seeking monetary relief to help fund the increased demand for school counselors, social workers and mental health support workers.<\/p>\n

Lawyers say the multidistrict lawsuit is the strongest case yet to force companies to change \u2018addictive\u2019 platform features, while companies argue that addiction to social media lacks scientific evidence.<\/p>\n

Meta, Google, TikTok and other social media companies could soon be compelled to fund student mental health services and redesign\u00a0features alleged to encourage compulsive use\u00a0if school districts prevail in a growing wave of lawsuits.<\/p>\n

More than\u00a01,000 school districts nationwide \u2014 including at least a dozen in California, including Los Angeles Unified School District \u2014 argue that\u00a0social media companies knowingly designed products that harm children\u2019s mental health, and that the cost of addressing the harm has shifted to schools, which have had to expand counseling, crisis intervention and campus safety efforts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cExcessive social media use has fueled a youth mental health crisis which essentially forces schools to pivot from education to crisis intervention on a daily basis,\u201d said Aelish Baig, a lead attorney representing LAUSD in the federal multidistrict lawsuit<\/a>. \u201cThe costs with these harms include enormous diversion of staff time, and significant cost associated with the increased anxiety and depression, self-harm and suicidality affecting the students.\u201d<\/p>\n

The federal lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of California, represents several school districts in Southern California, including Burbank Unified, Oceanside Unified, Coronado Unified, Temecula Unified, Santa Monica-Malibu Unified, ABC Unified and Ramona Unified, along with other districts from around the country. The districts are seeking both financial compensation and injunctive relief to help address increased demand for mental health support.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to their complaints, districts have had to hire more counselors and therapists, ramp up training for teachers and staff and educate students on online safety and cyberbullying with a reported rise in depression, anxiety and other mental health issues.<\/p>\n

A recent landmark jury trial and a bellwether school district\u2019s case in Kentucky have also emboldened the school districts currently in litigation against social media companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In March, Kaley Glenn-Mills of Chico was awarded\u00a0$6 million in a landmark jury trial in Los Angeles. Glenn-Mills, at age 17, sued Meta, the parent company for Facebook and Instagram, and Google, successfully arguing before a jury that the companies engineered their platforms to addict children.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In May, Breathitt County School District in Kentucky became the first district to settle with social media companies for $27 million for contributing to rising costs of school mental health services. The first part of the multidistrict case, brought by state attorneys general on behalf of their states, is scheduled for August, with the second part of the case, brought by school districts, following in February 2027.<\/p>\n

Meta appealed the verdict in the social media addiction lawsuit last week and Google plans to appeal as well, the Associated Press reported. \u201cWe will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online,\u201d a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to the Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Baig said the standing lawsuit, which now represents L.A. Unified, makes the strongest case yet to force social media companies to pay more than a lump sum.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Through injunctive relief, school districts are asking the court to compel social media companies to overhaul design \u201cdefects\u201d that encourage compulsive use, as well as implement new safeguards to protect student mental health. Overhauls could include drastic changes to commonplace engagement features such as infinite scroll, algorithmic recommendations and autoplay.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not until you have a strong coalition that you can actually effectuate change when you\u2019re going against corporations of this size,\u201d Baig said. \u201cIt would never have been enough to just have a few small school districts.\u201d<\/p>\n

LAUSD board member Nick Melvoin said the litigation follows a strategy similar to the district\u2019s fight against vaping and nicotine companies. In 2019, L.A. Unified joined a national class action lawsuit against e-cigarette company Juul, which ultimately paid school districts $1.2 billion in 2023 for targeting teenagers and draining school resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we did with the vaping settlements, we will present as part of these cases evidence of the amount of money that we\u2019re spending on social workers and counselors, and it would be to reimburse the district for those services that are already being deployed,\u201d Melvoin said. He said LAUSD will likely seek \u201ctens of millions\u201d in monetary relief along with \u201cinjunctive relief, and hopefully, policy change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Google rejected the allegations. Jos\u00e9 Casta\u00f1eda, a company spokesperson, told EdSource that YouTube has \u201cbuilt services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences\u201d and that the \u201callegations in these complaints are simply not true.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Kentucky case, social media companies argued that the district failed to prove that the students\u2019 mental health problems were directly linked to social media use. While the district referred more students for counseling, lawyers for the companies noted that \u201cnone of those referrals ever identified \u2018social media addiction\u2019 as the cause.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s likely because researchers have not found<\/a> clear markers of clinical addiction, such as measurable withdrawal, tolerance and real-world impairment, in social media use, to qualify an addiction diagnosis. Rather, studies point to evidence that young people can form harmful and compulsive habits from social media use. That distinction has been at the core of social media companies\u2019 defense, which have boosted billions<\/a> in revenue<\/a> with algorithmic features engineered<\/a> after slot machines.<\/p>\n

Vihaan Bhardwaj, a rising senior at Mt. Everest Academy in San Diego and the K-12 co-chief of policy at the GenerationUp youth advocacy nonprofit, said the defense makes \u201cinvisible\u201d students\u2019 lived experiences.\u00a0Beginning at age 12, he said Instagram repeatedly fed him \u201cfear-mongering\u201d content about his acne that led him to lose his self-confidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe one hour of just straight drinking alcohol will be so much worse sooner than one hour of scrolling, but you can\u2019t just say it\u2019s not harmful because the potency is less,\u201d Vihaan said.<\/p>\n

Social media companies also argued that school districts cannot measure which resources directly addressed student mental health issues tied to social media use. Baig, the attorney representing LAUSD, said school districts will tally an estimate based on years of counseling referrals, expenses, disciplinary incidents and costs, as well as documented cybercrimes and threats to children.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re experiencing thousands of annual incidents of suicidal behavior, of sick and depraved cyber crimes, of shooting and bombing threats coming in on social media, of extortion and student sex trafficking, all of which are diverting enormous resources from the district\u2019s core mission \u2014 which is to educate a student,\u201d Baig said. \u201cThey take up staff time, from teachers to mental health counselors to administrators to even the maintenance crew.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baig also expects discovery to uncover internal company documents linking youth mental health issues to social media use. Platforms have long studied compulsive use, growth strategies and engagement metrics for young users, and in 2021, leaked documents <\/a>to the Wall Street Journal revealed that Meta knew that 1 in 3 teen girls had worse body image issues after using Instagram.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even if social media companies are not forced by the court to make drastic design changes, Melvoin said schools will still save on mental health costs with state efforts to raise<\/a> the age for a social media account to 16, implement age verification<\/a> and expand digital wellness education<\/a> in schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And if school districts receive a big payout from social media companies, Vihaan said he hopes districts ensure \u201ccounselors are not just being added, but also trained\u201d to help kids with social media use.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to understand the in-person social disconnection that pushes us towards these platforms,\u201d Vihaan said. \u201cThat nuance is often misunderstood by these adult resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

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