North Hollywood sixth-grader Faith uses her phone to play Roblox, text her friends and control a cochlear implant that helps her hear.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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LAist
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Topline:
Students with disabilities are one of the few exceptions in Los Angeles Unified School District’s all-day cell phone ban, but the right to access their device is not automatic.
The backstory: As of Feb. 18, LAUSD students cannot use their cellphones, smartwatches, earbuds and other personal technology for the duration of the entire school day. The LAUSD Board voted last summer to expand the district’s existing phone restrictions to include lunch and passing periods. Board members cited rising concerns about the impact of phones and social media on youth mental health, bullying and distraction from classroom instruction.
Why it matters: There are at least 63,000 students with disabilities in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Those students have access to additional support, including the use of their cellphone. Families told LAist their child’s devices help them control medical devices, cope with anxiety and regulate their emotions.
An exception to the ban: North Hollywood middle-schooler Faith uses her phone to play Roblox, text her friends and control a device called a cochlear implant that helps her hear. “I was concerned for students like me,” Faith said when she heard about the cellphone ban. In January, her parents and a team of educators met to discuss her Individualized Education Program and agreed that Faith could continue to use her phone to control her implant and use specific apps.
Read on ... for more about exemptions to the ban.
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.
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What LAUSD students with disabilities need to know about the ban on cellphones in class
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:
LAUSD cellphone policy
THE RULES
Students must turn off and store their cellphones, smartwatches and earbuds during the school day.
Students can use devices before and after school.
Schools must provide students access to their phones in case of an emergency.
THE EXCEPTIONS
During the school day, students who need to can use their phones for the following:
Help with translation.
Health-related reasons, e.g. to monitor blood sugar.
Students with disabilities who use a cellphone or other technology as part of an Individualized Education Program or 504 plan will also not lose access to their devices.
THE ENFORCEMENT
In February, district spokesperson said in a statement that about half of schools chose to rely on the “honor system” and require students to keep their phones turned off and in their backpacks and the rest purchased lockers, pouches and other devices to store phones
“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.
Disability Law In Education: The Basics
IDEA: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 1975
Guarantees a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment.
Covers children with disabilities from birth until high school graduation or age 21.
Requires development of an individualized education plan (IEP) for certain disabled students, with input from school staff and parents, that identifies the specific services the student receives.
SECTION 504: Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 1973
Provides civil rights protections for people with disabilities in programs that receive federal funding, including employment, social services, public K-12 schools and post-secondary schools whose students receive federal financial aid.
Guarantees disabled students an equal opportunity to participate in sports and other extracurricular activities.
ADA: Americans with Disabilities Act, 1990
Title II prohibits state and local governments, including public K-12 and postsecondary schools, from discriminating on the basis of disability.
Title III prohibits private colleges and universities from discriminating on the basis of disability.
Requires postsecondary schools to provide educational auxiliary aids and services to disabled students to guarantee equal access.
IEP: Individualized Education Program
A written legal document created by families and school staff that outlines goals, services and other supports for students with disabilities.
Understood: a national nonprofit that raises awareness and provides resources for people with learning and thinking differences.
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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Zaydee Sanchez
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LAist
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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.
“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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Zaydee Sanchez
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LAist
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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.
When I'm on my phone, it just feels like I'm in my own world. It's just like a little safe space for me and it's something that can keep me entertained and calm.
— Crissy, Venice High School freshman
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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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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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.”
