The Brief

Los Angeles Unified students will be banned from using their smartphones and social media during the school day starting in February 2025.

The LAUSD Board voted to expand the district’s existing technology restrictions in June, citing rising concerns about the impact of the technologies on youth mental health, bullying and distraction from classroom instruction.

California lawmakers voted in August to require all districts to ban student smartphone use by July 2026.

“It is clear that our students, our youth’s addiction to their cellphones and the content that cellphones bring into their lives needs to come to an end,” said superintendent Alberto Carvalho. “The impact on their mental health is real.”

LAUSD officials unveiled full details of the policy at a meeting Tuesday. The school board does not need to vote on it. District officials said the policy is final; now it’s up to individual schools to decide how they’ll enforce it.

What’s the new policy?

Implementation will vary from campus to campus, but at a minimum:

• Students may not use cellphones, smartwatches, and earbuds on campus during school hours.
• Devices must be turned off and stored. 

Students can use devices before and after school and there are exceptions during the school day for students who need their phones for:

• Health-based reasons, i.e. to monitor blood sugar 
• Translation

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.

Schools must also provide students access to their phones in case of an emergency.

The district’s expectation is that when students come back from Presidents’ Day weekend in February, new policies will be in place at every school.

LAUSD Chief of School Operations Andrés Chait said the policy is based on:

• a review of existing research on youth cellphone and social media use; 
• feedback from parents, students and educators via in-person and virtual meetings; and
• consultation with unions, other districts, researchers and media professionals.

Chait said there are at least 50 LAUSD schools that already have strict cellphone policies.

What is an ‘emergency’?

Chait, who oversees school safety among other responsibilities, said there isn't a formal definition of an “emergency.”

“When all else fails, apply common sense," he said.

For example: If students have to leave campus because of an incident, or maybe there's an earthquake, that might constitute a time when staff members will let students have their phones to text their families.

A lockdown in and of itself is not necessarily going to constitute an emergency, however. District officials said they're trying to balance student safety and mental health with the need to try and communicate with family at home.

In terms of basic communication — like if a student forgets their lunch at home — Chait said front offices exist to help bridge parents and their children during the school day.

So I can have a say in my school’s plan?

Schools will be expected to come up with their own rollout plan based on community input.

Options on the table for storing phones include:

• pouches (students put their devices in, and those devices are sealed with a special key); 
• lockers; 
• an honor system (phones in backpacks)

LAUSD will offer schools several options for storing smartphones.

(

Courtesy LAUSD

)

The district has made a one-time allocation of $7 million to cover costs.

Parents should expect schools to begin communicating the policy and its timeline, and that schools reach out to gather thoughts on how to implement the policy, if they haven’t already.

That communication may come through the Local School Leadership Council (LSLC), which includes parents, community members, school staff, and students.

Chait said the district has “common expectations,” about how the new policy will be enforced, but schools will have discretion over incidents.

“For example, one school may say that the second time that there's an incident, the student may be referred to a dean,” he said. “Another school may say they're referred to a counselor. But in general, the expectation is consistent that there's a lot of dialogue, there's a lot of opportunities for changes to behavior before there's any confiscating of a phone.”

What do charter schools have to do?

The district’s traditional, magnet, and affiliated charter schools will be expected to follow the policy. Unaffiliated charter schools located on the campus of district-run schools are also expected to follow the policy, but they have more leeway, Chait said. For instance, they can use different products than what the district plans to make available to its own schools.

“But at the end of the day,” Chait said, “they have to ensure, one, that cellphone use is restricted for the school day and, two, they're in compliance with state law so that kids still have access to those phones in the case of an emergency.”

Read the policy

Share your opinion

Senior editor for education Ross Brenneman contributed to this story.

Companies that create and manufacture personal delivery devices, those cute bots you see on public sidewalks, have been working on growth plans for years.

Cities, on whose public sidewalks the delivery bots travel, are only now catching up to regulating them and charging the companies fees.

That's what's happening in Glendale, where, City Councilman Dan Brotman says, “[The delivery bots] just appeared out of nowhere. The company that operates [them] never reached out and talked to us."

He and other council members, he said, want to know if the delivery devices make it harder for Glendale residents using wheelchairs to use public sidewalks.

“I also am curious who is getting the financial benefit from these,” he said.

Glendale’s City Council asked city staff last month to draft two proposals, one with regulations and fees and the other pausing the operation of delivery bots while the council studies their impact. Brotman said staff may deliver those proposals to him and his colleagues in the months to come.

The two largest cities in LA County, at two different stages

The City of Los Angeles approved rules for personal delivery devices a few years ago, including flat permit fees. The City Council has since asked staff in the Department of Transportation to revaluate those rules and make suggestions.

One idea being considered — charging companies for every bot trip instead of the flat fee.

A delivery robot sits next to the bike path by the beach

(

Courtesy Coco

)

L.A. City Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez successfully introduced the motion last year to have the regulations revisited. 

“[The companies are] starting to put movie ads or show ads, and if they're generating revenue off that, we want to know what that looks like but also be able to have a fee for them,” Hernandez said.

That report should be presented to the City Council later this year, she said. 

She’s also keen to hear from the public about their views on delivery bots. 

Companies that make the devices argue they’re providing an essential delivery service to residents while cutting down on the number of vehicles on the road making the deliveries.

“We currently pay fees in Los Angeles, Chicago and West Hollywood as part of their permit programs and are open to similar models in other cities,” said Vignesh Ram, vice president of policy at Serve Robotics, by email.

Starship Technologies' delivery robot exits the elevator in the company's office.

(

Meg Kelly

/

NPR

)

The company is now operating in Long Beach; Ram says it notified the city before beginning to operate there.

A City of Long Beach spokesperson told LAist its business licensing, planning and public works teams are currently working on recommendations for regulations. Those should be presented to the City Council early this summer.

The story first appeared on The LA Local.

When Hermila Melero trains future therapists at Cal State LA, she emphasizes something she learned over nearly two decades working on the Eastside: It matters where you’re from. 

“When you know the difference between East LA and Boyle Heights … they appreciate that on a really fundamental level,” Melero, director of field education at CSULA’s School of Social Work, said. “You feel a sense of safety and being seen when the person reflects what you look like, has a foundational understanding of where you come from.” 

Now, a $48 million grant to California State University, Los Angeles, will open new opportunities for students to serve the communities they come from. The funding will expand the university’s social work and counseling programs, training 1,000 new students to support youth mental health in Eastside communities and other underserved areas of Los Angeles.

What will the funding do?

The five-year investment by the Ballmer Group — the largest grant in the university’s history — will significantly grow Cal State LA’s Master of Social Work program. 

Its one-year MSW program will double in size, the two‑year program will increase by 50%, and the School-Based Family Counseling program will also double. The bulk of the funding will support scholarships, new faculty and the expansion of clinical placements.

Cal State LA already partners with organizations across the Eastside, including El Centro De Ayuda, AltaMed, Survivor Justice Center and schools across LAUSD. The new funding will allow more students to work directly with these groups, serving families who often lack access to care. 

“This speaks to the amazing work our social work and counseling programs are doing within our schools and with LA’s agencies serving youth and families,” said CSULA President Berenecea Johnson Eanes in a statement to Boyle Heights Beat. “With more clinical placements and greater numbers of master’s alumni, we will make real strides in meeting a critical shortage of qualified social workers and counselors.”

In addition to CSULA, CSU Dominguez Hills received $29 million to expand mental health resources in South LA and UCLA will use part of its $33 million grant to develop a minor in youth behavioral health. The three universities have received a total of $110 million. 

When Hermila Melero trains future therapists at Cal State LA, she emphasizes something she learned over nearly two decades working on the Eastside: It matters where you’re from.

(

Courtesy CSULA

)

Why representation matters

For Melero, who was born and raised in East LA, the expansion is personal. 

Melero spent 17 years of her professional career as a social worker in her own community and the surrounding areas. She witnessed firsthand how much her patients appreciated it when she spoke to them in Spanish or told them where she grew up. 

“You don’t have to explain yourself, you don’t have to explain what it’s like, you know, to grow up here,” she said. 

Now as director of field education, she helps place students in organizations, clinics and schools across the region, many of them serving the neighborhood they call home. 

Barriers to access

The need for more mental health workers comes at a time when many Eastside families are facing more barriers to care.

Stigma around mental health combined with fear tied to immigration raids have discouraged some people from seeking services, Melero said.

At the same time, financial challenges are making it harder for students to enter the profession. 

In January, the U.S. Department of Education updated its definition of a “professional degree” and excluded social work, which will affect graduate students’ eligibility for federal student loans, creating a significant financial barrier, according to the Council on Social Work Education.

Students hope to give back

For students like Silvia Perez, 41, financial assistance would be a great help.

The Cal State LA undergraduate student is pursuing her master’s degree after she graduates in May, all while raising two teenagers and a 23-year-old. Perez has been paying for her education by selling shoes and perfume outside of her home in East LA. 

Her decision to pursue a career in social work came after seeing her sister navigate the Department of Children and Family Services system with her children and witnessing how young people in her community struggled with substance abuse and homelessness. 

After graduating, Perez hopes to work in East LA to help the people she encounters every day. She believes that level of understanding can create trust with an already vulnerable population.

“I would like to help the people in my community first…I live the daily life that everyone else in my community faces,” she said.

For more information on CSULA’s MSW programs, click here.

Editor’s Note: The LA Local also receives support from the Ballmer Group.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

California scored a legal victory Monday that for now, undermines the Trump administration’s efforts to drastically cut funding for homeless housing.

Changes that would have diverted huge chunks of federal funds away from permanent housing and funneled them instead into temporary shelters and sober living programs will remain suspended after the Trump administration dropped its appeal of an earlier court loss. While the broader case is still being litigated, the new development could provide some reassurance to California counties waiting for the federal funds.

“We continue to fight for Californians and the rule of law, and we continue to win,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a news release. “People experiencing housing insecurity or homelessness need the federal government’s continued support — not a rollback of assistance.”

In November, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development attempted to change the way it doles out money for homeless services via its Continuum of Care program. It decreed that jurisdictions applying for a piece of about $4 billion in federal homelessness funds can’t spend more than 30% of that money on permanent housing — a move that would result in a significant cut to the type of long-term housing that can resolve someone’s homelessness.

Last year, California communities spent about 90% of their federal Continuum of Care funds on permanent housing.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration quickly joined 19 other states and the District of Columbia in suing to stop the Trump administration’s changes. In December, a federal judge in Rhode Island temporarily blocked the changes and ordered HUD to process funding applications under the original rules. The Trump administration appealed that ruling, leaving local governments and homeless service providers unsure of what they would be awarded funding for, and when.

The federal government on Monday dropped its appeal. While the rest of the lawsuit will move forward, and could take months to resolve, counties should be able to access permanent housing funds in the meantime.

Instead of prioritizing permanent housing, as has been the rule in the past, the Trump administration wants to focus more on shelters that get people off the streets quickly and temporarily, and on programs that require residents to be sober. HUD also attempted to ban the use of federal homelessness funds for diversity and inclusion efforts, support of transgender clients, and use of “harm reduction” strategies that seek to reduce overdose deaths by helping people in active addiction use drugs more safely.

A HUD spokesperson said the agency stood by its funding reforms.

“HUD remains committed to reforming the failed ‘Housing First’ approach and restoring the Continuum of Care program to its core objectives; reducing homelessness and promoting self-sufficiency for all vulnerable Americans, ensuring taxpayer dollars are directed towards those goals,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

HUD experienced another legal setback last month when a federal judge in Rhode Island shot down the agency’s attempt to upend another, smaller, source of federal homelessness funding. At issue in that case was a program called the Continuum of Care Builds grant, which funds the construction of new homeless housing. HUD last year made grantees reapply under a very different set of criteria, which seemed to disqualify organizations that support trans clients, use “harm reduction” to prevent drug overdose deaths or operate in a “sanctuary city.”

About $75 million in federal funds had been frozen as that case moved forward.

In March, the court found HUD violated the law through its “slapdash imposition of political whims.”

“This ruling is a victory for people across this nation who have overcome homelessness and stabilized in HUD’s permanent housing programs,” Ann Oliva, chief executive of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, which filed the lawsuit, wrote in a statement. “Today’s news reinforces a fundamental truth: that the work to end homelessness is not partisan, and never should be interfered with for political means.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.