As her children start second and third grades in the Colonial School District, Elise LaChapelle expects they will spend no more than 20 to 30 minutes a day on their Chromebooks — limits the Montgomery County district has announced to parents.
Colonial also no longer allows elementary school students to take their laptops home at night. “That seemed to be an acknowledgment on the district’s end that changes were needed,” LaChapelle said.
Amid a spreading backlash to screens in classrooms, public school districts across the Philadelphia region are placing more limits on technology use — including by pulling back on one-to-one device programs once touted as critical for ensuring every student had access to technology.
The Tredyffrin/Easttown School District has stopped assigning iPads to kindergartners, and students across the district’s elementary schools will no longer take their tablets home at the end of the day.
In Methacton, the district has transitioned from individual devices to a shared model for kindergartners and first graders, with Chromebooks available for center-based activities, according to a district spokesperson.
The Phoenixville Area School District has ended its one-to-one device program for kindergarten through third grade, while in Wallingford-Swarthmore, kindergartners through second graders will take fewer online assessments, and kids up to fifth grade are no longer able to search and browse YouTube.
Parents who have been pushing schools to scale back on computer use are applauding the new restrictions as a step in the right direction of promoting teacher-led instruction and reducing screen-based distractions.
But they also question how much will change in practice, because children will still have access to devices in many classrooms. Some parents who have been battling for less screen time want schools to go further to address what they see as excessive reliance on technology at older grade levels.
In Lower Merion, which adopted a new technology policy last month that no longer assigns personal devices to kindergartners through second graders, seven parents are suing the district for rescinding their ability to opt out of computers entirely. The parents argue the district is violating their constitutional rights by requiring their kids to use internet-connected computers without adequate safeguards.
For many districts, reducing computer usage in elementary schools “seemed like the low-hanging fruit,” said Alex Bird Becker, a Wallingford-Swarthmore parent active in PA Unplugged, a statewide group with about 5,000 supporters that advocates for limits on educational technology. But “when you get to middle school, the device culture has become really ingrained with curriculum. That’s where it gets harder to disentangle.”
Wallingford-Swarthmore, a 3,700-student district, has been soliciting applications from parents to join a new Technology Advisory Council that will advise the district on further changes, including related to device use in grades six to 12. (In Lower Merion, parents have been pressing the district to create a technology review committee that includes parent representation.)
“We know there’s even more we want to do in this area,” said Russell Johnston, Wallingford-Swarthmore’s superintendent.
Johnston said the district was trying to ensure its use of technology was “focused” — posting online for parents to see which portions of the district’s elementary curriculum will incorporate technology, with lessons connected to Pennsylvania standards.
Wallingford-Swarthmore is also reevaluating how laptops are used during “curriculum enrichment” time, Johnston said, when students are broken into small groups to receive extra help.
In Phoenixville, which ended its one-to-one device program for kindergarten through third grade, “students will continue to have access to appropriate and approved educational technology for academic purposes only,” district spokesperson Nicole McClure said.
Alair Southerton, a Phoenixville parent who has been pushing the district to make changes, said the school board had approved “strong language” around when devices should be used in classrooms.
But “we’re still kind of crossing our fingers with the rollout,” Southerton said. She questioned whether teachers had clear guidance from administrators, and whether the district would consider educational technology apps that some parents object to as “gamified” as essential for learning.
“We want to really fine-tune what needs to be done on a device on a screen,” said Southerton, who is a member of a new district Edtech Advisory Council.
While Phoenixville this fall adopted a new program, Qustodio, to let parents monitor their child’s device usage, Southerton said it has been less revealing than she hoped. The program reports which websites students accessed at 15-minute intervals throughout the school day but does not say how long they actually spent online, she said.
In Colonial, LaChapelle is awaiting the district’s launch of a different program, Securly, that will also allow parents to monitor what their kids accessed.
While the district has placed limits on screen time — 20 to 30 minutes in kindergarten through third grade, 40 to 50 minutes in grades four and five, and 2½ to three hours in grades six through 12 — “accountability and transparency are key,” LaChapelle said.
Colonial spokesperson Jessica Lester said the district had “done more this year to try to communicate what our approach is” to technology.
LaChapelle noted that in order to register her children for school, she had to consent to a list of more than 100 software programs used by the district; officials have since told her they plan to revise that, she said.
LaChapelle hopes the district will continue to make changes. Taking an intentional approach to technology use could be a selling point for districts trying to show leadership, she said.
“We’re doing and saying a lot of the right things,” she said. But “this isn’t a one-and-done conversation.”
