The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education Tuesday passed a proposal that would ban students' use of cell phones and social media during the school day.
In a 5-2 vote, the board decided to direct its staff to begin developing policies over the next four months for the cell phone ban.
This vote does not automatically require schools to implement the ban. Rather with the passed proposal, LA Unified staff will begin discussions with stakeholders and experts to come up with specific recommendations.
The resolution, made by Member Nick Melvoin, seeks to have a new district cell phone policy in place by January 2025.
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Melvoin had cited research done on the effects that cell phones and their distraction potential have on learning.
“By removing personal smartphones and social media from the school day, we will help keep kids focused on the technology that supports education by insulating them from the distractions of technology that does not,” Melvoin wrote in an Op-Ed published in the LA Times last Friday.
The policy currently in place, adopted in May 2011, prohibits students’ use of cellphones “on campus during normal school hours or school activities, excluding the students’ lunchtime or nutrition breaks.”
