The Lower Merion School District board told parents Monday night that allowing students to opt out of classroom technology is not an option, drawing pushback from more than 100 residents who attended the meeting wearing “Screens Down, Pencils Up” buttons in this affluent Philadelphia suburb.
The board was considering updates to district technology policies, including repealing an existing policy that permits opt outs. School board member Anna Shurak told the meeting that “there is not an option for us to not have technology in schools.”
The district issues iPads starting in kindergarten, Chromebooks in second grade, and MacBooks by eighth grade. Parents who spoke at the meeting said that saturation has made it impossible to limit their children’s screen exposure even when they try.
Adam Washington told the board that his son struggles with screen addiction and that confiscating his phone or television only leads to him watching YouTube on the school laptop instead. “The screen is killing him. It is killing me, and him, together with our relationship,” Washington said.
High school senior Aliyah Pack said she finds it easy to watch Netflix during class on her school-issued laptop, hiding her earbuds behind her hair, and that she has difficulty concentrating when learning from a screen. Her mother asked the school to take the laptop away and was told that was not possible.
Parent Sara Sullivan sought to separate the district’s approach from the broader question of whether technology belongs in schools at all. “Teaching how to use technology is not the same thing as using technology to teach everything else,” Sullivan said.
Subashini Subramanian said the DreamBox math software her second-grade daughter uses rewards rushing through problems to gain points rather than methodical thinking. She described her daughter clicking rapidly through exercises, saying the software incentivizes speed over comprehension.
Superintendent Frank Ranelli wrote in a letter to parents that the district has “wonderful teachers who have continuously prioritized human interaction and relationships.” Ranelli declined to comment to the Associated Press for this story. The district said it is considering stronger cellphone restrictions, barring the youngest students from taking devices home, and installing monitoring software — though it acknowledged that surveillance tools carry risks. In 2010, the district paid $610,000 to settle lawsuits from two students who alleged it had spied on them through webcams on school-issued laptops.
Students who spoke at the meeting offered divergent views. Sophomore Mia Tatar, 16, said internet filters are now so strict that she has been blocked while researching appropriate topics such as breast cancer, and that removing laptops will not teach students how to manage their own screen time later in life. Sophomore Elliot Campbell, 15, said younger grades need tight limits but older students need freedom to prepare for college.
Joaquin Imaizumi, also a high schooler, disagreed, calling it “completely unfair” to expect children to self-regulate devices that adults find addictive. He said easy access to AI tools like ChatGPT on school laptops is eroding his classmates’ ability to think for themselves.
“I’ve seen the atrophy of my peers’ thinking, which is existentially concerning,” Imaizumi said.
Second-grader Lillian Keshet, who spoke at the board meeting, said Google Docs gives her writing suggestions she does not need. “I’m a pretty good writer by myself,” she told the board. “I don’t need your suggestions, Google!”
The Lower Merion debate is the most recent flashpoint in a nationwide pushback. At least 14 states have proposed laws to limit classroom screen time, with Alabama, Tennessee, Utah and Iowa passing legislation, according to Ballotpedia. The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest, announced it will ban screens through second grade, impose daily per-grade caps, block YouTube, and audit all education technology contracts.
In Vermont, proposed legislation would give both parents and teachers the ability to decline classroom tech. State Rep. Angela Arsenault, a Democratic co-sponsor of the bill, said parents “just aren’t being listened to or not being heard when they ask that their students not be forced to use these products.”
One parent at the Lower Merion meeting, Seth Ruderman, urged the board to work on solutions rather than let families exit the system individually. “Opting out is not a solution. It’s avoiding the hard work of finding a solution,” Ruderman said.