Los Angeles Unified is reevaluating how students, teachers and schools use artificial intelligence, and the district's newly formed Generative AI Committee holds its first meeting Wednesday from 10 a.m. to noon at 333 S. Beaudry Ave. in downtown Los Angeles. Parents pushing for a full moratorium on classroom AI tools are expected to make their case as district leaders present information on how AI is already being used in schools.
The committee traces back to June, when the LAUSD board voted to create it as part of the same action that adopted sweeping student screentime restrictions, according to LAist. That same month, the board unanimously banned classroom screen use for early education through 1st grade and capped daily instructional device use at 60 minutes for grades 2 through 5 and 120 minutes for middle and high schoolers, according to K-12 Dive. Hoodline previously covered the board's screen-time crackdown that set the stage for the AI review.
Board member Kelly Gonez chairs the new committee, which also includes Nick Melvoin and Tanya Ortiz Franklin, the LAist report notes. Gonez said the committee's task is to protect students' health, wellbeing and development while preparing them for life after graduation. Under the district's current policy, students aged 13 and older can use AI tools at their teacher's direction once they complete a digital citizenship lesson, per the same account.
Parents Push Back Amid a Costly Prior Failure
LAUSD parents are calling for an in-classroom moratorium on artificial intelligence, the report states, wanting the district to block all student AI use until more research is done. That caution follows the district's earlier and much larger AI misstep: LAUSD's $6 million chatbot known as Ed was taken offline in June 2024 after vendor AllHere Education suffered financial collapse and entered Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which later led to federal fraud charges against the company's CEO, according to LAist.
The fallout reached the district's top office. Federal agents executed search warrants in February at the home of then-Superintendent Alberto Carvalho as part of an FBI investigation into LAUSD's contracting with AllHere, according to the Los Angeles Times. Carvalho left the district in June. Not everyone on the committee agrees a moratorium is the right path forward — committee member Anya Meksin has said the current AI policy should be discarded and rebuilt around the benefits of educational tools rather than scrapped altogether, per LAist's reporting.
State Mandates and Mixed Research Frame the Debate
The committee's work is unfolding alongside new statewide requirements. California's Assembly Bill 3216, the Phone-Free Schools Act signed in September 2024, requires every public school district in the state to restrict or prohibit student smartphone use during school hours by July 1, and the California Department of Education has separately issued guidelines directing K-12 schools to adopt human-centered AI frameworks prioritizing student privacy, data security and academic integrity, according to the California Department of Education.
Research on whether AI tools actually help students learn remains mixed, even as recent surveys show students and educators are using the tools widely, LAist reports. A March survey by the RAND Corporation found that 62% of middle and high school students use AI for homework help, while 67% of students believe using AI for schoolwork harms their critical thinking skills, according to RAND Corporation. A separate 2025 RAND survey found that while 53% of core-subject K-12 teachers used generative AI for work tasks, only 34% reported their school or district maintained explicit academic integrity rules governing AI use.
The scale of youth AI adoption is also broader than the classroom. A Pew Research Center report released in August found that 64% of U.S. teenagers ages 13 to 17 use AI chatbots, with 54% using them to assist with schoolwork. And a Center for Democracy & Technology study published in December 2025 found that 56% of students in schools with extensive AI integration reported feeling less connected to their teachers as a result of classroom technology, according to the CSBA Blog.
What Happens Next
District leaders are set to present information about AI in education at Wednesday's meeting, and the committee plans to develop policy recommendations for a vote by the full board next year, LAist reports. Additional committee meetings are already scheduled for October 21, December 9, January 20, March 3 and April 7. Public comment registration for Wednesday's meeting opens today at 10 a.m., and community members can attend the meeting in person, online or by phone.
The committee's approach follows board actions already in place. An April resolution co-sponsored by Melvoin banned student-led use of YouTube and other video streaming platforms on district devices and restricted device access during passing periods, lunch and recess, according to Los Angeles Unified School District. The AI committee's recommendations will need to navigate that existing framework of restrictions, the district's ongoing litigation against social media platforms over student mental health, and a budget environment strained enough that LAUSD has already issued layoff notices to central office staff, including IT support technicians, as it faces an $877 million budget gap.
