The Santa Barbara Unified School District Board of Trustees voted Tuesday night to recommend screen time limits for school-issued iPads and to consider the ability for parents to opt their children out of certain tech use.
The changes, outlined in an “Intentional Use of Technology” resolution, will be implemented through a policy that the board will consider by October. Tuesday night’s vote was 4-0, with board chair Bill Banning absent.
The policy will prohibit students from using their personal devices on campus, reduce device-use for transitional kindergarten through 2nd grade, and provide recommended screen time limits per grade. It will also explore the option of giving parents autonomy over certain technology use for their children.
Two months ago, parents packed the board room, urging the trustees to implement a series of changes over district devices and how they’re being used in the classroom. They pointed to the Los Angeles Unified School District, which passed a similar resolution in May, as the example to be followed.
Since then, the district has banned YouTube on all iPads — much to the dismay of some students — and installed new content filters.
The approval follows a prior attempt to vote on a previous version of a tech-use resolution at the last board meeting, where trustee Sunita Beall had concerns about the vague implementation language and motioned to postpone the vote. She said the new resolution “satisfied [her] desire to have a really clear approach.”
Though trustees were in alignment with the resolution, they had a few concerns about students retaining access to certain platforms for learning, spurred by the comments made by students.
San Marcos senior Mateo Gallegos, who’s been outspoken about the impact of the district’s current YouTube ban, reinforced the platform’s usefulness for learning.
“Students rely on multiple perspectives to understand complex topics, and sometimes teachers can’t provide the educational support,” Gallegos said. “It worries me that you could see students on restricted plans who rely on school-administered iPads suffer academically from a lack of resources.”
New student board member, Victoria Martinez-Penaranda, brought up a recent example involving a Dos Pueblos student. The student was taking a hybrid class at Santa Barbara City College over the summer, which required her to watch lecture videos strictly on YouTube. Martinez-Penarada said the student had to buy a new iPad to watch her professor’s lectures.
“As this moves forward, I think it’s really good to consider all school models,” Martinez-Penaranda said. “It could be a little bit of a challenge for students who don’t have personal devices… Because even if SB Unified teachers can approve videos on YouTube, over the summer, it’s kind of hard to reach teachers or staff.”
Rob Cooper, the district’s director of educational technology, said the district is investigating what LA Unified did, which gave parents the option to click what they wanted to be on their child’s school iPad.
“We’re very optimistic, and we’re very close with the idea of being able to offer options for our families,” Cooper said.
The resolution had softer language than what the board considered previously.
For example, the approved resolution states that the district will “reduce the use of digital devices” for its youngest students, while the prior version would’ve considered eliminating its use entirely.
Other instances include considering “limiting camera access on student devices,” instead of “reducing or eliminating use of cameras,” and exploring the development of “parental choice procedures for technology use,” rather than “opt-out procedures.”
Additionally, the previous version would’ve brought forth a policy by September and a third-party security audit by the fall. The approved resolution will bring the policy by October but has no specified timeline for a security audit.
On Aug. 25, the public will be able to give input on the first draft of the screen use policy. By Sept. 14, the public will hear a revised version of the policy.
“This is not going to be done overnight,” said district Superintendent Hilda Maldonado. “Because we need to build trust, and an active partnership with teachers and staff.”
