Parents file suit against LMSD over new tech policy

LOWER MERION—The Lower Merion School District is facing a new federal lawsuit over computers.

In a 116-page complaint, seven families have filed suit in federal court in Philadelphia against the Lower Merion School District over its new technology policy, arguing the district violates their rights as parents by forcing students to use school-issued computers and not allowing an opt-out option.

Attorney Patrick Huyett filed the suit on the families’ behalf. The suit names every school board member and Superintendent Frank Ranelli.

In a joint statement, Huyett and Andrew Liddell of an organization called the Ed Tech Law Center, an organization that litigates nationally on school technology and student privacy issues, said, “Parents have the right to make decisions about their children’s education, including their exposure to and use of technology. Through this lawsuit, we are working to protect this constitutional right for parents while sending their children to schools in the Lower Merion School District.”

The district, in its response to the suit Friday morning, said, “The Lower Merion School District is aware of a lawsuit filed by some parents, not all of whom have students enrolled in LMSD schools, alleging the School Board’s decision to repeal a School Board Policy represents a violation of their civil rights.

“The District denies the allegations and will respond further through the judicial process.”

The plaintiffs are asking that parents be allowed to decline or limit their child’s use of internet-connected devices. They also want to work with the building principals to make accommodations to ensure their child’s education is not adversely affected if they choose to opt out of the district technology.

Another thing the parents want is to ensure the district does not interfere with the accommodations that the building principals provide to those students. They also want an order requiring the district not to take any retaliatory action against the plaintiffs.

For nearly a year, a group of parents in the district have raised concerns over the district’s reliance on technology in and out of the classroom. Through a parents-led group, Pencils Over Pixels, they have attended board meetings in the hope of having the district limit its reliance on school-issued devices.

Under the district’s old policy, parents could opt out. In July, the board voted to eliminate the policy. But even before the policy was formally eliminated, parents say the district had already disallowed the option.

In August, the school district approved its new policy that limits their reliance on technology. But the parents say it doesn’t go far enough.

Under the new policy, kindergarten through 2nd grade will have very limited use of technology, only for specific tasks such as testing, and they will not be issued devices.

Third- and fourth-grade students will have limited use of shared classroom devices.

Fifth- and sixth-graders will have limited access to devices. However, they will be issued them. They will not be required to take them home.

In seventh and eighth grade, students will be issued devices for instructional use during the school day and may take them to and from school.

In Lower Merion’s two high schools, students will have less than 120 minutes per day with individually assigned devices, and they can take them home.

According to the complaint, even before the opt-out option was formally removed by the policy change, Ranelli had already instructed principals to “refuse to accommodate families in violation of Former Policy 137 then in effect.”

Until this summer, Lower Merion had a policy that allowed parents to decline an internet-connected device for their children. Under its policy at the time, the district was required to use its best efforts to provide a non-digital accommodation. Plaintiffs allege that after the Pencils Over Pixels group organized to expand that opt-out option, Ranelli and Board President Kerry Sautner conspired to move in the opposite direction and not allow it. The policy was then repealed in a board vote earlier this summer, and a replacement adopted in August eliminates the ability to decline devices altogether.

“Despite the plain language of Former Policy 137, which required Defendant Ranelli to ensure that the District used its best efforts to accommodate parents who declined an internet-connected computer for their children, and Former [Administrative Regulation] 137, which left to the building principal the responsibility for making the necessary accommodations, Defendant Ranelli refused to accommodate those families and instructed the principals of each elementary school in the District not to cooperate with families who opted out,” according to the complaint.

The suit also dedicates several pages citing evidence from studies and other sources highlighting the danger of allowing too much screen time for children and the negative effects it can have on developing brains. They also cite information from the FBI warning about how violent groups have been infiltrating youth digital spaces and coercing them into filming self-harming acts, sex, and suicide. The newest threat highlighted in the suit includes the use of AI and AI chatbots.

“Popular so-called ‘artificial intelligence’ chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, are the subject of news reports and lawsuits alleging that they have sent their users into delusional spirals, encouraged them to harm themselves or others, helped them plan their suicides, discouraged them from telling their loved ones about their emotional distress, and encouraged them to conceal their plans and materials they used to take their own lives,” according to the complaint.

The parents say the internet has become much more than a place for information and the free flow of ideas.

“The internet of 2026 is not a neutral repository of information,” the suit reads in part. “Instead, over the last three decades, the internet has been profoundly transformed by the commercial imperatives of the attention economy, whereby technology companies make money by attracting or commanding human attention to their platforms, personalizing the delivery of information based on troves of information collected about individual users, and maximizing user engagement—that is, the total amount of time a person spends interacting with their platform.

“To capture user attention, many websites and web applications, including social-media sites and games marketed to children, include features designed to exploit human psychology in order to encourage habitual, compulsive, or addictive patterns of use. This discipline is known as “persuasive design” and was first developed in the casino gambling industry before migrating to Silicon Valley.”