S1: Welcome in San Diego. I'm Andrew Bowen in for Jade Hindman. On today's show , it's the first day of school for many students in San Diego. Will have three local education reporters joining us to talk technology in classrooms. This is KPBS Midday Edition , connecting our communities through conversation. School is in session. Today marks the first day of school for students in the San Diego Unified School District , and this year , screen use is top of mind for school administrators , teachers , parents and students. San Diego Unified has placed new limits on classroom technology , and computers will no longer be used for transitional kindergarten. I'm joined now by three reporters who are following these changes and other education stories in San Diego. Katie Anastas is KPBS education reporter Jacob McWhinney covers education for Voice of San Diego and Gemma Stephenson is here. She's the K through 12 reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune. And welcome to all of you to Midday Edition.
S2: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. So I want to start with you , Katie and Gemma. You were both at a high school this morning. The same high school to see the first day of school. All the students in action. Tell me what you saw and what struck you. Katie , why don't you start? Sure.
S3: Sure. So we were both at Patrick Henry High School , and , um , the the vibe was very , you know , celebratory and exciting. It was fun to see students returning from summer break and hugging each other after not seeing each other for a few weeks. Um , the cheerleaders were out with their pom poms. The band was playing. There were posters everywhere. There was one about , you know , welcome to your last first day to the seniors. So it was , um , everyone was happy and happy to be back and , uh , happy to see each other.
S1: Gemma , anything stand out to you at that school?
S3: Uh , I mean , the robotics kids were there.
S4: And they were like showing off their robot. That was kind of like launching balls across the courtyard. So that was fun to see. Wow.
S1: Wow. Yeah. Uh , Katy. San Diego Unified is banning YouTube and limiting laptop use. This school year. Remind us how the district arrived at this decision. Sure.
S3: Sure. So last school year , a group of parents started asking the district to really take a close look at laptop use in classrooms and whether it was doing more harm than good. Um , and this is not something that's just a local discussion. You know , there's been a pushback to educational technology all over the country right now. Um , I think a lot of advocates have been citing this same , uh , January Senate committee meeting where , um , experts kind of spoke to senators and said , you know , there's research showing things like , uh , that reading on paper can lead to better reading comprehension than on a screen. There are studies that show the opposite. So it's you know , the studies are mixed. But presenting research like , um , you know , other ones saying the more leisure time you spend on a screen at school , uh , the lower your test scores are when it's time to focus back in. So presenting all this research to lawmakers. Um , and here in San Diego , Unified parents were kind of bringing just their personal anecdotes of , you know , my kid is is seeing what , you know , things they shouldn't see on their school laptop or , um , you know , we don't have screens at home , but at school , they can't get away from them. And so it kind of pushed , I think , this discussion to the school board level. And we've seen the new resolution taken effect. That's that's now in effect starting today.
S1: Now as someone who doesn't have kids or , you know , no kids in school , and it's been a while since I was in school , I can't imagine being in a classroom with a laptop right in front of me the whole time. Is that how students are learning nowadays? You all know. I mean.
S2: Yeah , I mean , local classrooms are filled with technology. Now , you can probably remember in our day and age there were computer labs , right?
S1: Yes , I remember.
S2: Those have been around for decades. Um , but technology really started to infiltrate classrooms in the 20 tens when it became ubiquitous. Right. With the spread of what are often called 1 to 1 programs , these are when schools give every student a laptop , and they were created for some really kind of understandable , equitable reasons. You can imagine kids who are lower income have less access to these kinds of technologies than kids who are wealthier. But that has since gone very far. I mean , as of the latest estimates , schools are spending $30 billion a year. American schools are spending $30 billion a year on education technology. And that's led to a whole lot of impacts that were really hard to imagine before we kind of got ourselves into this. Right. And all of these years later , I think , as Katie said , there's a lot of research coming to the fore that shows that the impact of technology is not as kind of rosy as people made it out to be in the beginning. There are negative impacts of too much phone usage. A lot of this , I think we started to see bubble up with that back in 2024. California passed a law requiring all school districts in California to pass some sort of phone , you know , limits in schools. San Diego Unified did that. Now , kids are not allowed to use phones in certain certain times of the day. Um , but I think even given all of this , it was really hard for education reporters to be able to kind of foresee that one of the largest stories in policy or in education nationally was going to be this huge , parent led backlash against education technology. Hmm.
S1: Hmm. Gemma , what have you seen in covering this use of screen time limitations or , you know , other limits on technology in the classroom in your reporting?
S5: I mean , I think.
S4: Probably similar to what other people have said. I mean , I feel like San Diego Unified the last like a couple of months , especially like the last school year. Like there was that just like big push from parents who , like , really came out to like every school board meeting or at least most of them , and just kind of like really wanted to like , talk to the school board directly. And I think that some of the trustees , when they passed that resolution did kind of acknowledge those parents. Mhm.
S1: Mhm. Jacob , you wrote a story about a charter school in San Diego that has gone in not all , not just on AI , but actually not just chatbots but actual robots in , you know , powered by AI. Can you tell us about that school , what you saw there? Sure.
S2: Sure. Yeah. So this charter school is called Alta Schools. They have locations all across San Diego. And they recently spent $500,000 to buy two ChatGPT powered robots. These are legit humanoid robots. You know , they're like , six feet tall. They move around , they talk , all powered by ChatGPT. And I think they're evidence of one of the ways that we really have seen education technology infiltrate classrooms. And that is under the argument that these are ways to get kids more engaged in school. That's certainly what this school was , was , you know , arguing with this , these purchases that , um , these novelty , uh , sort of purchases will make kids more interested in coming to school. Maybe if there's a robot that they can talk to , you know , they will get excited about robotics or excited about , uh , you know , any sort of engineering sort of stuff. Um , I think that , uh , what we have seen , though , certainly with that story , was a huge degree of skepticism and how efficacious these kinds of things are. I spoke to experts for that story who basically writ that wrote that purchase off as a charade , uh , basically said that this is not how we should be spending public dollars , because , remember , charter schools are publicly funded. And so this was our taxpayer dollars going to what was essentially an experimental thing. I sat there in the room watching it speak to and interact with kids , and it seemed it was very clunky. You know , even district administrators said that. And so I think that when we look at education , technology and classrooms , we have to be really , really careful. Make sure that there's a balance there and make sure that everything we're bringing in has some degree of , you know , research backing to make sure that there aren't negative impacts on kids that that we may not have been able to foresee. Mhm.
S1: Katie , you also observed a teacher who who is using AI in the classroom , not a robot and not a ChatGPT , you know , chat bot. Tell me what you saw and what her argument was in favor of this type of technology. Sure.
S3: Sure. So the classroom I visited was a high school English class , and she was using a specific set of tools that , um , you know , one example was like , if students have a writing assignment and the prompt is , you know , the assignment is I need you to write a story with a beginning , middle , and end. Um , you know , with X , Y , and Z kind of characters , if a student is sitting there and thinking , I don't know what kind of what to write about , they could go into kind of an idea generator and it could spit out an idea. So her perspective on that was rather than having a student sitting there and and not working on the assignment , we can kind of get them to that next step faster. Getting getting them to the skills that this assignment is focused on by doing that idea generation. So , um , that was one example. Another one was , uh , her students. She has a tool where students are reading a passage and as they read a chat , bot type of thing comes up and asks them reading comprehension questions. And , uh , can the students put in an answer and it kind of grades you and lets you move on , um , as you kind of analyze the passage and make sure you're understanding what you're reading. So , um , I think that she , she goes to a lot of educational technology conferences. You know , she is up to date on the tools that are out there. And , you know , she feels like , I think the way she described it to me was that this allows her to kind of duplicate herself in the classroom. It's giving individualized attention to students when she's only one person in a room of 20 , 25.
S1: Kids , she said. 36. Actually , I remember the story specifically , she said , how long would it take me to go around to each of the 36 students I have in my classroom? Which makes me wonder how much of this is really just trying to save on labor costs or , you know , to get us to spend less money hiring teachers. Any of you have thoughts on that?
S2: I mean , I think that this has always been one of the arguments against stuff like this. For years and years and years , educational technology companies have made all of these sorts of pie in the sky promises both that they may be able to reduce labor costs , that they may allow teachers to do more. I think that there have been some researchers who found that oftentimes teachers are left trying to figure out how to cobble these systems together , that they're really difficult and not necessarily as intuitive to use , as you would think. And so while at times it could potentially make a teacher more effective , like you're sitting in that instance , there is also the difficulty that , you know , maybe it doesn't. Maybe it makes their job harder. I think ultimately , when it comes to these kinds of AI programs , there are so many potential impacts that are really hard to predict. You know , I've spoken to a teacher in San Diego Unified who uses AI to to grade or critique student essays. Right. And we know at the same time that there are students who are using AI to write these essays. And so we know that there are instances where AI is judging or critiquing or grading an essay that was written by AI. And so I think that it's very difficult to look at those sorts of examples and feel like , um , you know , we're going in the right direction.
S1: Gemma , you mentioned a lot of parents showing up just , uh , San Diego Unified School board meetings and speaking against technology. What are some of the arguments that you hear saying , we need to put a stop to this. Why? Why is it that technology is seen as a bad thing by some people?
S5: Um , I mean , I think probably.
S4: Just like the same things that , you know , Katie and Jacob have talked about , like , there's just kind of like been this concern over , like , screen time or kind of like , you know , maybe like trying to limit screen time at home , but then they go to school and then they're like on more screens. Um , and just kind of like , you know , uh , versus , you know , just kind of like screen time versus like other types of learning.
S1: And , um , argument there , there's a nationwide group , Schools Beyond Screens. Are you all familiar with them? I mean , what is their argument? Yeah.
S2: Yeah. Schools be on screens. Is the is the kind of local parents group. They have like kind of chapters across the nation. Right. And so they were the local parent group who really were driving the conversation about screen usage. And their arguments are really I mean , Katie laid it out very well. There has been this growing body of evidence that that points to the fact that that kids maybe aren't necessarily wired for learning on screens that potentially , you know , the overload of technology that we've brought into classrooms isn't serving kids best interests. It's obviously important to figure out how to find a happy medium there , because technology is undoubtedly useful in certain instances. You can think about kids with disabilities. Right. Like a kid who maybe who may be blind or who may need a screen reader or stuff like that , they're incredibly valid and absolutely necessary uses for technology. And there are also things that really kind of help teachers know where kids are. One of the biggest software platforms that's used across the country is this platform called Eye Ready that offers student testing. Right. Kids take tests. Um , they it breaks them down and it tells teachers , like , maybe , maybe Johnny needs more help with division , right? Or maybe , you know , L.C. needs more help with phonics , that kind of thing. And I think that there are a lot of arguments for this kind of stuff. But at the same time , people have found reasons to criticize. Everything I read is one of those things. Parents have filed a lawsuit against the platform , claiming that they do. They illegally sell or kind of illicitly sell student information , and also that kids just don't find this kind of thing engaging and it's wasting a lot of time. So while certainly these things can provide some advances , they also have everything that's a drawback. Right.
S1: We're going to take a short break , but stay with us. We'll keep the conversation going. Welcome back to KPBS midday Edition. I'm Andrew Bowen in for Jade Hindman. It's the first day of school for San Diego Unified School District. And I'm here with three education reporters to talk about the year ahead and what they are following. We've got KPBS and Katie Anastas , KPBS education reporter Jacob McWhinney , education reporter for Voice of San Diego. And Gemma Stephenson , who covers K-12 education for The San Diego Union-Tribune. So we've been talking about AI , technology and school classrooms. I want to shift gears a little bit to the Grossmont Union School District , which has been the center of some controversy recently. Gemma. The school district had a contract with a mental health services provider that they pulled. Can you tell us about what that controversy was? Yeah.
S5: Yeah.
S4: So this actually mostly happened before I came to San Diego. So , you know , I'm kind of referencing my colleague Kristen Takeda's reporting for the most part of this , Um , but yeah. So , um , uh , a couple of years ago , the high school district basically kind of ended , um , like , contracting with this , uh , mental health provider , San Diego Youth Services. Um , and then more recently , um , the San Diego civil grand jury kind of released this report kind of going back through that , um , and that report , you know , kind of talked about like the origins of it and then the reactions to it and kind of like brought this back up to like the forefront in the last couple of months. Um , and so , um , yeah.
S1: And the county grand jury found that the decision to pull the contract with this , uh , mental health services provider was based on falsehoods , false information. That just was not true. Is that right?
S2: Yeah , yeah. The grand jury really slammed the district for the decision , saying that it very likely harmed students , that it left kids without comprehensive mental health services for a period of months and pointed to essentially falsehoods about what San Diego , what kind of services San Diego Youth Services offered. um , young trans kids. And they said essentially that the board came to the decision to ditch that provider because of those falsehoods and perceptions that that the organization was doing , you know , stuff that they did not approve of when it came to trans kids.
S1: And , Katie , there was also some controversy in the Grossmont School District about librarians and layoffs. Is that something you covered? Yes.
S3: Yes. Um , my my colleague Elaine Alfaro has kind of taken this coverage over for me , but , um. Yeah , I guess it was a couple of years ago now. Uh , the district went through some pretty significant , uh , layoffs of of library positions , um , and , uh , kind of the latest kind of , uh , look back on that decision has come with them deciding to spend a lot of money on athletics. And , uh , the pushback from the community with that decision has been , you know , we have money now to spend on athletics. Where was this money when we could have spent it on librarians and Jacob.
S1: You reported recently about some activity from the teachers union in Grossmont Unified , and they're looking to make some changes to the makeup of the school board. Is that right? Yeah.
S2: Yeah. It is. So all of this stuff that we've been talking about has been part of this kind of long simmering culture war at San Diego or at , excuse me , Grossmont Union High School District. Um , the board has for a very long time , kind of been navigated by these three board members who collectively have served on the board for more than 60 years. And they have all been , you know , these conservative folks who from the perspective of of some community members and some educators , have really driven a sort of conservative ideology to the center of this district. And so that's where we get decisions like the choice to end the contract with San Diego Youth Services. The librarian controversy kind of came out of that. There were a lot of folks who were really upset with that decision And upset with some other decisions to fire folks in the central office. Really amazing reporting by Kristen. And , uh , Gemma has showed just how sort of coordinated the board acted when it came to , um , making decisions about who to lay off. They were kind of gleefully cheering on reductions in force of people who , it seemed , at least from the reporting , may they may have perceived as ideological enemies. All of that inspired this incredible pushback from the community. I mean , when you were in those board meetings , it was an auditorium filled with hundreds of people who were were furious. Um , and so now we get to this moment where three of the board members , kind of at the center of all of these controversies , are up for reelection. Uh , folks who opposed them tried to mount a essentially a ride in campaign to have them recalled. They failed there , but now they're giving it another shot with this election , and they are kind of being pushed by the teachers union , which is very interesting because for many years the teachers union actually supported these conservative board members. They. I think there was a sense that they were there was no way they were going to lose. And so the union said , okay , well , we're just going to go with the devil we know. Um , leadership at the union has changed. One of the people who was actually impacted by the reductions of force has taken over. And she , along with other folks in the union , have taken a much more active stance in this election. They have , um , you know , they have three new folks who are running for the for the seats , uh , folks who all were educators themselves , two of them , I believe , taught within the district. And they are pushing very hard. And for the first time in a while , working with other unions to try to make sure that that these folks can unseat these three longtime conservative board members who have really put their stamp on the district for years.
S1: I want to zoom out and look at a statewide education issue that has been changing , and that's the the office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. This is an elected position , and it's going to be on the ballot in November. But that position will not have the same power that they used to. Gemma , can you tell us about the efforts to reform this office in the state legislature? And one of those lawmakers was from San Diego as well , right?
S4: Both of them.
S1: Were both of them. Okay. Yeah.
S4: Yeah. Or like San Diego area? Yes. Um , yeah. So , um , basically there's been like , talk for a long time , just kind of about like whether or not the state superintendent position should be elected or not , and it still is going to be elected. Um , but like California is one of like , I don't know the exact number that I had , but a dwindling number of states that , like , elect their state superintendent or their state schools chief. Um , and so , yeah , there has now been legislation that's kind of going to take the oversight of like the California Department of Education role and kind of put it like into this new , like , governor appointed role , the education commissioner. Um , and kind of like when you look at like national trends in data , there tends to be like a tendency of like appointed state superintendents or state school chiefs , kind of having more history of being an educator , while elected ones tend to have more of a history of being like a politician. And so like when I talk to our local lawmakers , you know , that was one of the things we talked about that , you know , like there's guidance in the legislation that , yes , hopefully the education commissioner will be somebody who's like more of an educator.
S1: And the idea is to part of the idea at least , is to have accountability for public education , be focused in one office , which is the governor who will appoint this person , right , rather than this obscure office that not many people understand or know what what is about. Right? Yeah.
S2: Yeah. I mean , one of the big knocks on the the state superintendent role was that it was a very , very ill defined one. And it kind of still is. Even with these changes , it had some powers , but many of those powers were more kind of bully pulpit powers and the power to , you know , hold schools accountable or to , you know , do accountability. Work for schools was spread across multiple different agencies. And so with these changes which have have been pushed and advocated for from by educators and education advocacy organizations for many , many years , the hope is to centralize that , to make sure that , you know , one organization is doing the lion's share of this accountability work. I will point out , it is very interesting because we are entering this election where the person who almost certainly will win this , this , this seat is a local. It is San Diego Unified. Board member Richard Barrera , who has been on the board for 17 years. He's one of the most like influential people in San Diego that you may not know about. He has kind of been the ideological sort of guiding post of the district who has who has really sort of architected. It's it's more union labor friendly direction and it's more social justice , you know , progressive policy direction. So the fact that he is now potentially a rising , rising up to this , this role at the same time as two local legislators are really cutting the feed out from it is I think it's just a very interesting reality. Hmm.
S1: Oh , we're just about out of time , but I want to ask each of you about a story or an area of coverage that you're really interested and excited about in the coming school year. Katie.
S3: I think something I'm interested in , in continuing to follow , kind of in the , um , in the AI and educational technology world is , um , the idea that how do we align what guidance is at the high school level and then what guidance is at the college level? I think that when I did that story and I went to that English classroom , so many students said , well , I know I'm not going to be allowed to use AI in college. So , you know , at least I'm learning how to use these AI tools effectively. And I've also done a story at Sdsu where students are overwhelmingly using AI. So I think , um , how we talk to students about what to expect in college is a is a piece that I want to focus more on very briefly. Jacob.
S1: Jacob. Gemma. How about you guys?
S2: I think that the huge increase in the number of kids with special education , accompanied by this huge decrease in overall enrollment , is something that we're going to see increasingly stretched district budgets. Gemma.
S1: Gemma. Any few seconds of school coverage , literacy curriculum. Okay. Excellent. We love that. All right. Well , I've been speaking with Katie Anastas , education reporter for KPBS. Jacob McWhinney , education reporter for Voice of San Diego , and Gemma Stevenson , K-12 reporter for the San Diego Union Tribune. Thank you all for joining us today. And that's our show for today. I'm your host , Andrew Bowen , in for Jade Hindman. Thanks for listening to Midday Edition. Have a great day.
