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In the last few weeks news media outlets have reported problems with Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) new AI chatbot portal. 

But while district officials work through the program’s kinks, for many Latino and Indigenous families, talk about the use of advanced technologies to improve or simplify communication with schools is daunting. Even parents who work and volunteer at LAUSD parent centers and are well informed say they don’t know a thing about tech-driven portals, programs, AI, or chatbots. 

For Our Voice: Communities for Quality Education, an L.A.-based nonprofit organization that undertakes foundational work to help families in low-resource neighborhoods access reliable and affordable internet as part of a broader Digital Equity Los Angeles (DELA) initiative, it’s frustrating. 

Many Our Voice families living in underserved areas of Los Angeles County report paying monthly internet bills of $80 or more.  Too many low-income communities are being left behind. According to a 2020 study by USC Annenberg researchers, roughly one-in-four K-12 households in L.A. County lack access to broadband internet and devices. 

While the school district this year committed $10 million from its $18.4 billion budget to keep students and their families online as federal funding ends, this is a one-year allotment. What comes next?  Before we can talk about AI and chatbots, we need to talk about and address access. Ignoring this, is much like having our families and the school district inhabit two different universes where never the two shall meet: In one, district leaders announce technological advances and progress to great fanfare, and in the other, low resource parents are still trying to access broadband internet and learn basic new technologies in order to advocate for more urgent issues like literacy, mental health resources, and school safety.

Digital equity is critical to the work we do to help families access needed resources that can impact their overall wellbeing and future. The reverend Martin Luther King Jr. said, “It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.” By giving high-need families access to 21st century technologies that are affordable, reliable, and accessible, we are giving them the boots they need to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.  

At the state level, lawmakers have an opportunity right now to level the playing field for our families with Assembly Bill 2239, authored by Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D-Oakland). The bill ensures that Angelenos living in underserved neighborhoods have access to affordable high-speed internet services without incurring exorbitant costs. It would essentially bring an end to digital discrimination. The good news is that the bill passed both the Assembly and Senate Judiciary and Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committees. It is set to be heard by Senate Appropriations in early August.

While state lawmakers take on the digital divide this summer, LAUSD must prioritize the need for affordable broadband, and help build basic tech skills for families who require this level of investment and support.