Pupil instruction: digital wellness.

The amendment to Section 51925 is entirely removed. This section would have required all school districts, county offices of education, state special schools, and charter schools offering health education courses in middle or high school to include digital wellness instruction meeting specific requirements (core principles, relationship between technology use and mental health, and optional topics like screen time effects, online safety, AI awareness, etc.). Without this, the bill no longer directly mandates classroom instruction.

The definition of 'artificial intelligence' or 'AI' is replaced. Instead of defining it as 'computer systems designed to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, including learning, reasoning, problem solving, perception, and natural language processing,' the bill now simply states it has the same meaning as defined in Section 33328.5 of the Education Code.

The definition of 'instructors trained in the appropriate courses' (meaning instructors with knowledge of the most recent evidence-based research on mental health and digital wellness) is removed from Section 51928.

The 'evidence-based' definition is narrowed. It previously required recognition by professional organizations and agencies with expertise in 'the mental health and digital wellness fields.' Now it only references 'the mental health field,' removing the digital wellness component.

Item (6) of the department's plan requirements is reworded from 'Collaboration and professional development opportunities for educators' to 'Strategies for ensuring adequate support and professional development opportunities for educators,' with the addition of 'as appropriate' at the end, making the collaboration requirement less mandatory.

Throughout the bill, the abbreviation 'AI' is replaced with the full term 'artificial intelligence' in legislative findings and plan requirements (e.g., 'AI-powered' becomes 'artificial intelligence-powered').

Section 51929(b)(6) was reframed from requiring 'collaboration and professional development opportunities with technology companies, mental health organizations, and media literacy experts' to requiring 'strategies for ensuring adequate support and professional development opportunities for educators regarding digital wellness topics, including collaboration with... as appropriate.' This broadens the focus to educator support and softens the collaboration requirement by adding 'as appropriate.'

Section 51929(b)(5) changed from 'Assessment methods for evaluating program effectiveness' to 'Assessment methods for evaluating program instruction effectiveness,' adding the word 'instruction.'

Multiple drafting errors were cleaned up: duplicate text in the AI definition ('problem-solving, problem solving'), redundant letter labels in Section 51925(b) sub-paragraphs, and garbled text in the 'Evidence-based' and 'Instructors trained' definitions in Section 51928.

Senator Umberg was added as a coauthor of the bill.

The bill text was reformatted from the official printed legislative document style (with line numbers, page headers, and column formatting) into a plain web page layout with navigation menus, search fields, and standard paragraph spacing. All substantive provisions remain unchanged.