Los Angeles Cut Off Generative AI for Every Student. Its Own Board Members Found Out at a Committee Meeting.

LOS ANGELES — The nation's second-largest school district has shut off student access to generative artificial intelligence for the entire school year, and its own elected board members learned about it the way the public did: at a meeting.

The moratorium surfaced Wednesday at the first session of Los Angeles Unified's Generative AI Ad Hoc Committee, when the district's chief academic officer and its head of technology told board members that generative AI is now out of reach for all students on district devices until further notice. Senior administrators put the policy in place on their own authority, saying they were acting in the spirit of the board's unanimous June vote to limit student screen time. Under that policy, students get no screens until second grade, with permitted screen time expanding gradually as they get older.

Board member Kelly Gonez said she had not known. "I, even as a board member," was "under the expectation that we were still operating under last year's policy," she said, referring to the rule that let students 13 and older use AI tools after completing instructional units on digital literacy and responsibility. "The fact that it's different today, this school year, is important." Board member Nick Melvoin did not object to the moratorium but was uneasy about how it arrived. "If the policy is we're not going to allow students to use generative AI for the meantime, then we should publicize that," he said. "But also, that didn't really come from the board, so I'm of two minds on that right now — just expressing some discomfort."

Parents who had come to the meeting to demand a moratorium discovered they had already won. "This is unlike any public comment I've ever made," said Bridie Lee, a leader of the group Schools Beyond Screens L.A., who set aside her prepared remarks. "I would like to make it crystal clear to everyone reporting on this today, that LAUSD has made history again." Lila Byock, who founded the group, said the restrictions in Los Angeles and New York show "the people have the power to reclaim US public schools from corporate influence."

The timing was not a coincidence. The same day, New York City — the largest district in the country — announced a one-year ban on student-facing generative AI from pre-K through eighth grade, covering nearly 600,000 students, with high schoolers limited to vetted programs under direct teacher supervision for no more than 45 minutes a week plus twice-yearly AI literacy instruction.

Los Angeles has been here before, from the other direction. In March 2024 the district launched its own custom AI chatbot, "Ed," at a splashy event at Edward R. Roybal Learning Center. The platform later collapsed. The ad hoc committee is due to bring the board a set of AI policy recommendations by the end of the 2026-27 school year. Until then, the answer for 400,000-plus students is nothing at all.