The Brief

There are at least 63,000 students with disabilities in the Los Angeles Unified School District. For these students, the district's cellphone ban has implications beyond missing texts from friends or losing the option to scroll social media at lunch.

Families told LAist their child’s phones help them control medical devices, cope with anxiety and regulate their emotions.

While students with disabilities can be exempted from the Los Angeles Unified cellphone ban, that requires families to assert their rights.

Without an exemption, students can lose access to a valuable learning tool and the policy may also put students in the awkward position of sticking out from their phone-less peers.

When Faith returned to her sixth-grade class at Walter Reed Middle School in January, she learned students would soon have to lock their phones in pouches all day to comply with a new district-wide policy.

“I was concerned for students like me,” Faith said.

The North Hollywood student uses her phone to play Roblox, text her friends and to control a small electronic device that helps her hear. Faith’s cochlear implant sits over her left ear and translates sounds into electrical impulses that her brain interprets as sounds and speech.

We wanted to understand how students like Faith and their families are navigating the ban, which went into effect last month.

Pico-Robertson mom Ingrid Levy said she’s heard about the challenges cellphones pose at her daughter’s middle school, from bullying to students recording fights, but is also comforted by being able to reach her child, who experiences anxiety, in real time via her smartwatch.
“How do we find that balance?” Levy said. “It's tricky.”

Here's what we learned:

What rights do students with disabilities have?

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act guarantees students with disabilities a “free appropriate public education.” Still, many families struggle to access services that would help their children learn, and Congress has never fully funded special education as intended when the law first passed in 1975.

“The goal of all of those laws really is to be sure that students with disabilities are not unfairly segregated, or removed from the classroom, or from the learning that their peers get on the basis of their disability,” said Denise Marshall, chief executive of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a national nonprofit that advocates for the legal and civil rights of students with disabilities and their families.

Special education law protects students’ rights to use technology that helps them in the classroom. For example, Los Angeles Unified provides more than 3,000 students with devices, such as iPads that translate text to speech, through its assistive technology program.

Marshall is skeptical of cellphone bans. She said that they may be a barrier, because families have to assert a right and go through the process rather than it being automatic.

Marshall said families of students who want to ensure their child’s access to personal technology can call a meeting of their child’s IEP or 504 Plan team to discuss adding an accommodation that specifies how the device is used to benefit the student.

But she’s also worried that students may feel too uncomfortable being the only ones in their class with access to a phone to use the device to their benefit.

“It's just the overall dampening of an effective, promising technology,” Marshall said.

Faith and her dad, John Perron, outside Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood.

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Marshall said while there is validity to the argument that students may use technology in inappropriate and distracting ways during the school day, many use their cellphones in a way “that enhances their learning,” for example, by taking photos of assignments or leaving themselves a voice note during the school day.

And she said a ban does little to prepare young people for the future.

“The goal is supposed to be to graduate students, all students, from school who have the tools and the skills they need to be successful in the workplace in community living and interacting with other people,” Marshall said. “Artificially limiting their access to the number one way that people communicate in our society these days, to us, makes no sense.”

Students navigate a new reality

As Los Angeles Unified developed the cellphone policy last year, Faith’s dad, John Perron, contacted his school board member.

“I wanted to make sure that the parents and the students' voices made it to the top,” Perron said. He’s the former chairman of a committee that advises the district on special education.

“Devices have their place,” Perron said. “And some people have more of a need.”

The resolution that expanded the district’s existing cellphone restrictions included several exceptions, including for students with IEPs or Section 504 Plans.

However, the existence of either document doesn’t grant a student automatic access to their phone. Perron shared a district flier with LAist that read “exceptions can be made if the student’s IEP or Section 504 plan outlines specific needs for the device to support the student’s unique needs related to their disability.”

An LAUSD spokesperson said in a statement that students and families should discuss their child’s needs with their teachers, IEP teams and coordinators. The district could not provide the number of students who have received an accommodation related to their personal devices.

Perron said his request that Faith continue to have access to her phone to control her cochlear implant and apps that translate audio to text were met with “zero resistance.”

Faith holds up her cellphone pouch (bottom) next to her brother's, which is locked for the duration of the school day.

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The school issued Faith a pouch with a Velcro closure that allows her to access her phone if needed. Her peers’ pouches are sealed magnetically and can only be unlocked by a staff member.

The exception doesn’t go unnoticed by Faith’s friends.

“There's a joke where whenever I'm using my phone, they'll be like, ‘This is a rare sighting, a phone in the middle of the school day,’” she said, with a smile.

She recognizes that her exception has limits — “I can't just open YouTube.” Faith said she’s already had to contact her dad several times to bring her a new battery for her implant.

Other families are taking more of a “wait-and-see” approach.

Crissy is a freshman at Venice High School and has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.

Her IEP allows for her to take a “breather” from class and listen to music if she needs to calm down, but she says she hasn’t done that since the school’s full-day cellphone ban started in February.

“If I asked for permission, I feel like I'd be OK with it,” Crissy said. “But if I didn't, I feel like I'd be scared to do it.”

At Venice, students are expected to store their phones in locked cases that remain in their sixth period classroom.

The Los Angeles Unified School District budgeted $7 million to purchase pouches and other storage devices, like the lockers seen here at Venice High School, to enforce the all-day cellphone restriction. In February, a district spokesperson said in a statement that about half of schools chose to rely on the “honor system" and purchase no additional equipment.

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“Immediately in my brain, I was like, ‘I'm not gonna put it in the locker,’” Crissy said. “Anything could really happen. So I don't really trust it enough to be in a locker.”

LAist visited Venice classrooms in February and interviewed several students and teachers. At the time, the majority of students opted not to turn over their phones.

Crissy’s mom, Cristal Perez, said she does not encourage phone use during class, but supports her daughter’s decision.

“She's allowed to turn it off and turn it back on after school,” Cristal said. “I think that should be fine. She should not have to hand it over.”

Crissy said since the ban was implemented, her weekday screen time is down to about an hour a day. On the weekends, she spends about 8 hours a day on her phone, often watching make-up tutorials on TikTok and teen romances, including the “To All the Boys” series, on Netflix.

“When I'm on my phone, it just feels like I'm in my own world,” Crissy said. “It's just like a little safe space for me and it's something that can keep me entertained and calm.”

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman is blaming Boeing and his own agency for botching a test flight of the Starliner spacecraft, designed to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

A 311-page report details the issues that led to the failure of Starliner's first crewed test flight, which in June 2024 launched NASA astronauts Butch Willmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral Space Force station in Florida.

The duo's launch was initially a success — but as their Starliner spacecraft approached the station, multiple thrusters failed, hampering the crew's ability to steer toward the station and dock.

After months of deliberation, NASA and Boeing made the decision to send Starliner back to Earth without Wilmore and Williams on board. Instead, the astronauts remained on the space station and returned home nine months later — in SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule.

In a news conference Thursday, Isaacman said the report classified the failure as a Type A Mishap — the highest classification for a mission failure. The Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia accidents, along with the Apollo 1 fire, were also classified as a Type A Mishap. While those accidents resulted in the deaths of crewmembers, the Starliner mission was "ultimately successful in preserving crew safety," according to the report.

The report identifies the thrusters as a key technical issue leading to the failure, although an investigation is still ongoing and a root cause has not yet been found.

"Starliner has design and engineering deficiencies that must be corrected," said Isaacman. "But the most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware. It's decision making and leadership that, if left unchecked, could create a culture incompatible with human spaceflight."

He said those organizational and leadership problems were seen at both Boeing and NASA, Isaacman's own agency.

The report identified an erosion of trust between the two organizations and leadership that was "overly risk-tolerant."

Isaacman said that the more than 30 launch attempts for this mission led to "cumulative schedule pressure and decision fatigue." When discussing whether to return Wilmore and Williams in Starliner, Isaacman said the "disagreements over crew return options deteriorated into unprofessional conduct while the crew remained on orbit."

Isaacman said there would be "leadership accountability," but didn't offer any details.

"These are very complex programs, and complex programs like this fail in complex ways," said Don Platt, department head of aerospace engineering, physics and space science at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida. "Those organizational issues are oftentimes, maybe even more important than the technical problems that they're facing."

Such a public scolding of NASA and one of its contractors by its own leader is uncommon, says Platt, who worked on the construction of the space station.

"I think it's really setting the stage for sort of the new way that NASA plans to do business here in his administration," says Platt.

He says that could mean greater transparency and oversight over NASA's contractors

Despite NASA's plans to decommission the space station by the end of the decade, Isaacman says he is still committed to flying Starliner. That would leave NASA with two options, Boeing and SpaceX, to fly astronauts to the station — something SpaceX already does with regularity.

The report offered 61 formal recommendations ahead of the next crewed Starliner mission.

"We're grateful to NASA for its thorough investigation and the opportunity to contribute to it," Boeing said in an emailed statement. "We're working closely with NASA to ensure readiness for future Starliner missions and remain committed to NASA's vision for two commercial crew providers."

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The Long Beach Unified Board of Trustees on Wednesday authorized the school district to end the employment of close to 600 employees, a move the LBUSD says is necessary to stabilize its ballooning deficit.

Board members approved two separate resolutions, the first of which does not renew the contracts of 515 certificated employees, who are on temporary contracts that must be re-upped annually. Though it is common for the district to choose not to renew some temporary contracts, the non-renewal of hundreds of TK-12 teachers, early childhood education teachers and social workers represents a massive change for the next school year from the current workforce of 10,000 total employees. While schools across the district will feel the cuts, Poly and Jordan high schools may be especially hard hit; 14 and 12 teachers at each site are listed on the district’s document of non-renewals.

The second resolution authorized the district to formally lay off 54 classified district positions: non-teaching staff members ranging from office support staff to instructional and recreation aides to library media assistants to parent liaisons.

The board votes come after months of warnings from the district that costs and spending have outpaced the district’s funding, saddling LBUSD with a $70 million deficit. The district is now attempting to shrink that deficit through a fiscal stabilization plan that “has prioritized preserving core instructional, wellness, and student support services,” the district wrote in an agenda item related to the cuts.

Prior to the vote, Superintendent Jill Baker framed the proposed cuts with the historical context of significant enrollment declines, the expiration of funds following the Great Recession and COVID-19 pandemic that had allowed the district to develop a healthy reserve, uncertain federal and state dollars and low attendance numbers, for which the district is penalized — “a really grave situation, fiscally,” she said, one that many districts across California are grappling with.

Baker walked board members through the significant efforts the district has made to manage costs, saving more than $47 million, including through significant central office reductions. Despite these efforts, it’s still not enough, Baker said.

“The release of temporary certificated contracts is one way of reducing the number of employees without impacting permanent certificated employees,” the district wrote in the agenda item.

For those 515 certificated employees who will be notified that their contracts will end, it’s a way that “the district can get away with letting teachers go without calling it a layoff,” said Peder Larsen, vice president of the Teachers Association of Long Beach, which represents certificated employees in LBUSD.

Some of them could be rehired, especially if their positions are in high demand, like science, math and special education teachers, Larsen said. Yet, it throws hundreds into a tailspin of uncertainty and fear, unsure if their jobs have definitively ended and how long they will have health coverage, he added.

While he said the district has not officially announced that no permanent certificated employees will be cut (they have until March 15 to do so), he said he is “reading the tea leaves” and predicting those permanent positions will be safe this year.

In his comment to the board during public testimony, Larsen advocated for examining the money spent annually on consultants and contracts and urged the board and district to re-examine their priorities and “choose to protect the people who serve students every single day.”

On both votes, School Board Member Maria Isabel López was the lone vote against the resolutions, voicing her opinion that some of these positions could have been saved if fiscal priorities had been different and major contracts had not been approved.

Other board members acknowledged that the votes will change lives. “There’s not one of us in this room that takes this lightly,” said Board President Diana Craighead before voting in favor of the cuts. Board Member Doug Otto said he was voting to adopt the resolutions “sadly, reluctantly and necessarily.”