Howard Blume

The Los Angeles school board set in motion a plan to ban cellphones all day on campus, saying the devices distract students from learning, lead to anxiety, and allow cyberbullying.

Despite promises of help, families in the low-income neighborhoods of Watts, Boyle Heights and South Los Angeles have struggled to get online, with at least 16% of students lacking basic internet access, according to a survey of public school families in those communities released by the nonprofit Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. Many more students likely lack the high-speed internet connection needed for regular online academic work, according to the organization, which manages 18 L.A.

Los Angeles school district officials have allowed a group of high schools to choose from among six different laptop computers for their students -- a marked contrast to the 2013 decision to give every pupil an iPad.

Contracts that will come under final review by the Board of Education would authorize the purchase of one of six devices for each of the 27 high schools at a cost not to exceed $40 million.

In the fall, administrators, teachers and students at those schools will test the laptops to determine whether they should be used going forward. What they learn will affect the future of an ongoing effort to provide computers for all students in the nation's second-largest school system.

"The benefit of the new approach is clear," said Los Angeles Unified school board member Monica Ratliff, who chaired a panel that reviewed the technology effort. "Why would we treat all our students -- whether they are a first-grader or a high school freshman -- as if they all had the same technology needs? They don't.... To have a one-device-fits-all approach does not make sense."