001Good morning and welcome. The time is now 10:03 a.m. on November 19th, 2025. Welcome to the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education regular meeting with closed session items. I'm going to take role. Miss Newell >> present. >> Dr. Rivas. >> Mr. Melvin >> here. Miss Grigo, Miss Gomez, Miss Ortiz Franklin, >> present. >> Board President Schmorson present. >> That's four. We have a quorum. >> I will read out the purpose and authority for the meeting today in close session and then we will take public comment associated with those items. Then general public comment and then the board will recess into close session. So under tab one, student discipline matters pursuant to education code section 48918 CF. Tab two, personnel under government code section 54957, the superintendent's evaluation. Under tab three, conference with legal
002counsel pending litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9D1. I'm going to read you the case names. These can all be looked up electronically on the Los Angeles Superior Court website online lookup system. So am VLAUSD at all. Then Shirley Baria Soa v Zoom LLC at all. Jane Row Te at all. V Lausa USD at all. SM guardian admoro m v lausd at all. Ruben Bobalia vla USD at all. Uh Levy Rashel V LUSD. All of these case numbers are also available on our website so that you can look them up. Uh located on the order of business for today's meeting under tab 4 conference with labor negotiators pursuant to government code section 54957.6. The negotiator is Dr. Murphy. The employee organizations are Associated Administrators of Los Angeles Teamsters 2010, California School Employees Association, Los Angeles
003Building and Construction Trades Council, Los Angeles School Police Association, Los Angeles School Police Management Association, Service Employees International Union, SEIU Local 99, Teamsters, United Teachers Los Angeles, and District Represented Employees and Contract Management Personnel. We have speakers here listed here for tab 4 conference with labor negotiators in person. Uh Mr. David Tokovski. I don't see you Mr. Tokoski. Roger Fiser, are you here? Mr. Roger Fischer, I do not have you here. Mr. Fischer, let me check online just to make sure I didn't skip anybody. Oh, not there. Okay, now we'll go to general public comment. I will call on the folks who listed themselves as being in person and then I will call on the folks who have listed themselves as calling in. Uh Mike Pearl, are you here? Come on up, Mike. You'll have
004two minutes to speak once you begin. And then after Mr. Pearl is uh Roger Fischer, who's erroneously listed because he cannot speak twice. So, and then Gil Gam, who I don't see here. So, please, the floor is yours, Mike. >> Okay. Uh this concerns uh tablets, the use of tablets in schools. Um I'm Mike Pearl. I'm a tech journalist. Um and I will let other speakers who um are are going to be talking about this tell you about the studies and the damage that tablets do to kids ability uh to concentrate and learn. Um I don't write all that much about kids in education, but I cover the way that tech companies behave. uh why we have no reason to trust them with the well-being of our children. Why we shouldn't listen to their promises.
005Uh why we should all of us keep our interactions with their products to a minimum. Did my mic turn up? Oh, okay. Uh my oldest son is supposed to start kindergarten in 9 months. Uh and the prevailing wisdom among the cohort of parents who like me raised our kids entirely after the 2020 lockdowns was this. The less screen time the better. Period. For some of us, it was impractical or impossible to raise kids without devices. No judgment there. But my wife and I were lucky to be in a position to get through our kids' babyhood and toddlerhood without screens. Some screens, the Dodgers on TV, but no Blueie, no Coco Melon, a few family movie nights, but no iPad ever. So, the thing about my wife and I finding out that our son's kindergarten plans
006to hand him a tablet is we weren't mad. We were just shocked, confused, caught completely offguard. Our initial reaction was fine, where's the opt out form? And then the principal told us, there's no opt out form. Tablets are bust. That's just what we do. End of story. It's this or home school. Pretty shocking. Uh we were pretty uh distressed about this until we found out that there are a lot of LA parents exactly like us, and most of them are much angrier than me. We have the numbers. We there are we have there are a lot of us, and we are not planning to let this go. And the parents of babies are just as upset about this. So it will stretch on for years if all we get in response is a we hear
007you and a pat on the head. For my wife and I, the change we need is tiny. The opposite of a permission slip. Just give us a box to check that says you won't put one of these things in our kids' hands. I couldn't be easier. We're just looking for an opt- out form for tablets, particularly for kindergarten. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. All right. Roger Fisher's not here. Gilgamesh, are you here? Gilg game not here. Oh, now I will now call on the folks who are listed as being remote. So, Anna Mexen, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Anya Mex. >> My name is Ana Mexen and I'm a member of Schools Beyond Screens. Um, and today I'm going to
008share some comments about problematic tech use from LA USD parents and teachers who couldn't be here. Um, so Anna, a parent at Michelle Terraina Elementary, says, "My daughter had a long-term sub for two months who allowed the class to play Minecraft and other apps on their Chromebooks for the majority of the day, giving my daughter headaches and making her irritable. Not to mention that she didn't learn anything for the last two months of the year." Laura, a parent at Ivanho Elementary, says, "My child has ADHD and has a hard time focusing. He was given a device to take his I Ready test and was able to switch over to Epic, another platform, during his testing with I Ready. So, his testing scores were low. I was shocked that they would give a device where a
009kid can jump off task and be distracted and able to access another application during testing. Isabelle, a parent at Laces, says, "My kid is constantly on his Chromebook at school, and most of the time he's not doing school work, but just watching YouTube or playing games online without any school or parental control since supposedly there's no way to block sites on these Chromebooks provided by L USD." Samantha, a parent at Aloma Elementary, says, "My oldest son is just beginning L [clears throat] USD, and I was shocked to learn that one-on-one devices are provided and encouraged in elementary school. The principal claimed it was just for 30 minutes a day, but when I was touring the school, every single classroom from TK through fifth had a TV on or children working on a personal device. It
010is extremely upsetting. And finally, I have the perspective of Esther Calderon, a teacher at Calvert Charter, who says, "As a kindergarten teacher, I feel the weekly mandated 90 minutes of I Ready practice is not developmentally appropriate and harmful for our students. I don't think we should have a blanket no tech policy, but we are at a crossroads with AI and the overuse of apps and these apps do not have the research backing their claims. So, at schools beyond screens, we have compiled many more comments from all over the district that echo these concerns and again that the board >> Thank you for your time. Andrea Self, I see you're on the line. Andrea Self, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Uh, good morning board
011members. Can you hear me? >> Yes, we can. Please go ahead. >> Great. Um, I'm here as a parent to address a district-wide problem, the unrestricted all day device use required in LEOC classrooms and that is harming children's cognitive developmental, emotional stability and their learning. At home, I block apps like YouTube, Roblox, and Minecraft like a lot of other parents. But these LU USD issued devices bypass my restrictions. The behavioral changes that we're seeing me and other parents withdraw irritability isolation mirror exactly what we saw during pandemic Zoom classes when my children were seven years old. They were lucky enough not to have that in third, fourth, and fifth, but when they went to middle school, it was all day every day iPads in class and homework online. That's at least 12 hours a day.
012Federal and academic research shows this is not a personal anecdote. It's a developmental risk. The scientific evidence is clear. Uh NIH imaging studies show heavy screen exposure is associated with cortical thing in areas responsible for language reasoning and executive function which is necessary to be able to focus in school. Multiple studies show each additional hour of screen time increases attention deficits by roughly 9%. Imagine our neurode divergent students. The emotional impact is equally serious. A meta analysis of 292,000 children found that increased screen time is linked to emotional and behavioral problems. National data link successive screen use to significantly higher risk of anxiety, depressive symptoms, and addictive use patterns. And uh MIT's JPAL review found that simply providing computers does not pro improve K through 12 academic outcomes. Stanford research war warns that many educational
013technology platforms reduce students to quantifiable data, not deeper learning. Privacy is a separate and urgent issues. Studies show 90% of these apps share student data with third parties. US UCSD findings show that 80 86% of school surveillance vendors monitor students 247 using AI with limited oversight. And what I'm asking D'vor is to take immediate steps. Implement daily device free instructional blocks. Restore parental content controls on district devices. Restrict non-instructional apps de. >> Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. The next caller is Amanda Baker. Amanda Baker, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Amanda Baker. Hi, I'm the parent of a third grader and soon to be kindergartener and I'm calling because I have serious concerns about screen time and device use at
014our LA USD school. Firstly, I do not consent to my child having internet access at school. The devices our children are given are not age appropriate and it's impossible for even the best teacher to be able to monitor each child on their Chromebook with access to endless distractions. In addition to addiction and distraction, if you need further proof that children are not ready for these adult tools, last year when my son was only in second grade, a child used his schoolisssued Chromebook to take a picture of his own genitals, set it as the wallpaper on his schoolisssued Chromebook, and show it to other students. This was during class time in what I would consider a well-run classroom. We have put our teachers and kids in an impossible situation and it is time to make a
015change. It is time for LUSD to step up. I've also seen firsthand the benefit of going back to pencil and paper. Last school year when all homework was done on Chromebook, it would take forever with my son mostly fiddling with fonts and changing his avatar. His teacher this year switched to paper homework and it's done in half the time with easy focus. It's also no secret that the people who created these programs and devices are the same ones who choose to send their own children to technologyfree schools. When we realized my son's class was on computers during inclement weather, parents sent in board games and the teacher was not only grateful but noted that the dynamic in the class changed for the better. That the kids played and interacted with each other. Please think about
016the next generation of citizens you are growing right now. There's a mental health crisis in our country. We need our kids to be interacting with each other, building empathy and resilience, not watching a Danny Go video instead of playing outside. We want to stay at LUSD, but the screens have become such a concern that we are thinking of other options for our kindergartenner and pulling our fourth grader out if nothing can change. This is a rapidly growing issue for all parents and it is affecting enrollment. So, please L USD, catch up to us. Thank you. Thank you for your time. The next speaker is Maria Daisy Ortiz. Miss Ortiz is going to speak in Spanish. So, if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English, please put your hands up and we'll get you
017translation headsets. Okay. Maria Daisy Ortiz, please go ahead. >> Good morning. My name is Maria Dei Ortiz and I am here uh with agree I'm agreeing with the quality that has been provided by school police. Uh we are also asking as parents we want proof of alcohol and drugs for school personnel and safe passages because we have seen that many of the personnel and we have right as parents that when there is a doubt a reasonable doubt we should ask proof of any drug that's being taken from personnel especially knowing that I have a license from the state that any person that is at a school and you have a reasonable doubt, I can report it. Now, it saddens me because there are parents that say that they don't want school police at the schools.
018It saddens me because I would not like their children to never have any issues and for them to need school police in their in that issue. I tell the parents and all the people that are against school police, where will you send your schools? Will you have them in a capsule? Because in the city there's highway patrol, sheriff and LAPD. And if you will go to college, there are school police at the colleges. The universities have school police. What world do you want your children to live? School, excuse me, uh police has never been a a threat. In the re in the contrary, they are the ones who help maintain order and security inside and outside the schools knowing that there's a lot of danger with our students, not just selling drugs and not just
019in the schools, but there is also human trafficking. This is why I ask for you to do the correct thing. We need our childrens to be in a safe environment. Thank you and have a great day. Miss Row. No. Okay. That concludes public comment uh for this portion of the meeting. I'll note all board members are here and the superintendent is here. The time is now 10:19 and the board is going to recess into close session. Thank you.