Seven families have filed a federal lawsuit against the Lower Merion School District in Montgomery County, claiming its student technology policy amounts to an unconstitutional “digital free-for-all” that exposes children to serious harm.
The suit, reported by KYW Newsradio, alleges students have been able to access pornography, violent videos and gambling sites on school devices. Children can “chat with strangers and bully each other,” the lawsuit states, and artificial intelligence tools have helped them “cheat on their assignments.”
The families are asking the court to require Lower Merion to let parents opt their children out of using school computers entirely. If the district will not allow that, the suit seeks to have Lower Merion pay for private schooling instead.
Lower Merion has denied the allegations.
The dispute has been building for months. In August, the school board passed a new rule scaling back device use, but hundreds of parents who signed a petition said the changes did not go far enough. Those parents want the ability to decline iPads and laptops altogether, a step the district has not taken.
Lower Merion is one of the wealthiest and highest-profile suburban districts in the Philadelphia region. The case could draw attention from school communities across the area, including in Northeast Philadelphia, where the School District of Philadelphia has expanded its own student technology programs in recent years.