LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Unified School District implemented new limits on classroom screen time starting the week of August 11, 2026. The policy bans educational technology for kindergartners and first graders and establishes phased caps for older students across the district that serves more than 400,000 students.

Superintendent Andrés E. Chait addressed the rollout of the restrictions in an interview. "On Aug. 12, you may not necessary see in the immediate all of the changes that the policy calls for but they will be implemented methodically and transparently," Chait said. The school board passed the resolution limiting screen time in spring 2026.

Under the new rules, second and third grade students will be limited to 20 minutes of screen time per day starting in November 2026. Fourth and fifth grade students will be limited to 30 minutes of screen time per day starting in November 2026.

Older students face weekly allowances rather than daily caps. High school students will be allowed one and a half hours of screen time per course per week starting in January 2027.

Virtual textbooks are exempt from the new screen time limits. Software on student devices will track weekly screen time usage but will not shut off devices when limits are reached. The district banned cell phones in schools during the previous academic year.

Pia Sadaqatmal is the chief academic officer of the Los Angeles Unified School District. She acknowledged the complexity of applying such restrictions across a large system. "There is no perfect solution on how to roll out to a school district the size of ours. We have one of the first school districts in the nation to adopt a policy at this scale. We know that we are going to be learning along the way at each phase, Sadaqatmal said."

Armaghan Khan is a science teacher at Johnnie L. Cochran Middle School. Khan expressed concern about the operational impact of the limits on instruction. This is going to be a big impact for me. I would say about 75% of our work was on some kind of screen-based activity, Khan said.

Khan noted resource constraints that complicate the transition away from digital tools. My hands are kind of tied in terms of just what I can offer. We have a lab space, but we do not have a lab budget.

Kirti Baranwal is a teacher librarian at William Jefferson Clinton Middle School. Baranwal offered a measured perspective on the changes. I have more questions than I do sort of immediate … concerns around it. I think generally screen time limits are good," Baranwal said."

A 2025 UNESCO book stated that unprecedented educational dependence on technology often resulted in unchecked exclusion, staggering inequality, inadvertent harm and the elevation of learning models that put machines and profit before people. A 2021 nationally representative survey of 850 teachers found that screen time can take up to four hours of the school day.

A November New York Times survey of 350 educators found that 32 percent of elementary teachers said their students use screens for an hour or more per day, compared with 86 percent of upper-school teachers. A 2020 study in the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness reported that EdTech companies find their own programs to be nearly twice as effective on average than independent evaluators do.

Naomi Baron is a language and technology expert at American University in Washington, D.C. Baron's research on reading comprehension in some 300,000 U.S. fourth and eighth graders found that reading on screens for 30 minutes per day was associated with a decrease in scores on a national standardized test. A 2023 study in Reading and Writing reported that the drop in test scores associated with screen reading was particularly sharp in younger students.

A 2022 study reported a link between EdTech use and lower test scores on an assessment of reading, math and science literacy among 15-year-olds around the world. A 2023 study in PLOS One involving 15 children aged 6 to 8 found that reading a passage in print triggered brain activity linked with intense concentration and thinking, while reading on a screen did not. Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus is a developmental cognitive neuroscientist at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. Anna Lembke is a psychiatrist and addiction medicine expert at Stanford University.

Why It Matters

As one of the first districts nationwide to enact limits at this scale, Los Angeles Unified's approach affects over 400,000 students and sets a potential precedent for managing technology in education. The policy shifts instructional methods by restricting screen access for younger grades while allowing older students weekly allowances per course. Educators note the operational impact on classrooms where significant portions of work previously relied on screen-based activities. These changes align with research linking excessive screen reading to lower test scores and reduced concentration in younger learners.