ARDMORE, Pa. \u2013 For high school senior Aliyah Pack, getting distracted during school is the norm. Kids in her Pennsylvania school district use iPads starting in kindergarten, switch to Chromebooks in second grade and get their own MacBooks in eighth grade. <\/p>\n
Aliyah has ADHD, and finds it difficult to concentrate when she\u2019s learning from a screen. She\u2019ll watch Netflix in class on her school laptop, hiding her earbuds behind her long, curly hair. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very hard to get into the mindset of being in school,\u201d Aliyah said.<\/p>\n
Aliyah\u2019s mother saw her grades were falling and asked the school to take away her laptop. But she was told that wasn\u2019t possible.<\/p>\n
Across the country, parents are voicing concerns about excessive screen time in schools<\/a> and lobbying educators to go back to pencil and paper. In places like Lower Merion Township, where Aliyah goes to high school, some are taking it even further. Over 600 people in the affluent Philadelphia suburb have signed a petition asking to preserve parents’ ability to opt their children out of using digital devices during the school day. The public school district has pushed back, saying it\u2019s not feasible to let hundreds of students opt out of technology that is essential to the curriculum.<\/p>\n Disagreement over how tech is used in the classroom<\/p>\n At a meeting Monday night, school board members said they were considering many ways to respond to parental concerns about technology, but allowing opt-outs was not one of them.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is not an option for us to not have technology in schools,\u201d said Lower Merion School Board member Anna Shurak.<\/p>\n The board was meeting to discuss updates to the district\u2019s technology policies, including repealing a policy that allows opt outs. Over 100 people showed up to protest, many wearing buttons that said \u201cScreens Down, Pencils Up.\u201d <\/p>\n Many emphasized they\u2019re not anti-tech \u2014 in fact, most parents agree that learning how to responsibly use computers is an essential life skill. They just don\u2019t want tech to dominate the classroom. <\/p>\n \u201cTeaching how to use technology is not the same thing as using technology to teach everything else,\u201d said Sara Sullivan, a parent. <\/p>\n Technology has become inescapable at schools<\/p>\n The debate in Lower Merion raises the question of whether technology has become so intertwined with learning that it\u2019s impossible to opt out. Kids use devices to play educational games, submit their homework, access online resources and write essays \u2014 but parents are questioning the value of gamified edtech software.<\/p>\n Subashini Subramanian said the software her second-grade daughter uses for math, DreamBox, incentivizes rushing through levels to gain points. When she encouraged her daughter to think through the problems methodically, the 8-year-old said, \u201cIf I go through all the steps, it\u2019s slowing me down. I have to click, click, click.\u201d <\/p>\n At the school board meeting, many parents said they were exhausted from battling their kids over screen time. Adam Washington says his son struggles with screen addiction, so sometimes he takes away his phone or TV \u2014 only to find him watching YouTube on the school laptop instead. <\/p>\n \u201cThe screen is killing him. It is killing me, and him, together with our relationship,\u201d Washington said.<\/p>\n Another parent at the meeting questioned what students would do instead of using their computers. <\/p>\n \u201cOpting out is not a solution. It\u2019s avoiding the hard work of finding a solution,\u201d Seth Ruderman said. <\/p>\n Parental pushback on edtech has led to change<\/p>\n The pushback on technology in the classroom has gained steam around the country. At least 14 states have proposed laws to limit screen time in schools, according to Ballotpedia, with four states \u2014 Alabama, Tennessee, Utah and Iowa \u2014 passing such legislation. <\/p>\n In Los Angeles, the nation\u2019s second-largest school district said it will ban screens until second grade, require daily caps for screen time per grade, ban YouTube and require an audit of all education technology contracts.<\/p>\n In Vermont, proposed legislation would allow not just parents but also teachers to decline to use classroom tech. Democratic State Rep. Angela Arsenault, a bill co-sponsor, said she\u2019s responding to parents’ worries about edtech.<\/p>\n \u201cParents in many districts and states just aren\u2019t being listened to or not being heard when they ask that their students not be forced to use these products,\u201d Arsenault said.<\/p>\n The Lower Merion school district said it\u2019s listening to community concerns and has already made changes, including blocking some problematic websites flagged by parents.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have wonderful teachers who have continuously prioritized human interaction and relationships,\u201d Superintendent Frank Ranelli wrote in a letter to parents. He declined to comment to the AP for this story.<\/p>\n The district said it is looking into possible changes, including stronger cellphone restrictions, not allowing the youngest students to take devices home and installing software to monitor students in class. <\/p>\n However, surveillance software can bring its own problems<\/a> and poses risks to student privacy<\/a>. In 2010, the Lower Merion School District paid $610,000 to settle lawsuits by two students who alleged the district had spied on them via the webcam on their school-issued laptops. <\/p>\n Kids want ways to hold themselves accountable<\/p>\n High school student Mia Tatar, 16, raised concerns at the board meeting that there\u2019s been an unintended consequence to the anti-tech backlash. The internet filters on school computers are now so strict, she said she\u2019s been blocked while doing research on appropriate topics for school, like breast cancer. <\/p>\n Mia said students need to learn how to responsibly use technology, and adding filters or getting rid of laptops won\u2019t do that. <\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t teach kids how to hold themselves accountable and how to be responsible for regulating their own screen time once they\u2019re in the world,\u201d Mia said in an interview.<\/p>\n Her friend Elliot Campbell, 15, said there should be strict limits on screen use in the youngest grades, but students should get more freedom as they get older. <\/p>\n \u201cIf we lose our laptops or if we lose the partial freedom we have on them, it\u2019s not going to prepare us for college,\u201d Elliot told board members at the hearing. <\/p>\n Fellow high schooler Joaquin Imaizumi takes a different view. He said it\u2019s \u201ccompletely unfair\u201d to expect children to regulate their usage of devices that even adults find addictive. <\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t about learning to constrain yourself,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cWe don\u2019t give someone drugs and say, \u2018OK, now learn how to deal with this.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n His biggest concern is that devices make it far too tempting to access AI tools like ChatGPT, which he sees eroding his classmates’ ability to think for themselves. <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen the atrophy of my peers\u2019 thinking, which is existentially concerning,\u201d Joaquin said.<\/p>\n The influence of AI starts early. A second-grader named Lillian Keshet, who got up to speak at the board meeting, said Google Docs will give her \u201csuggestions\u201d about what to write in class.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a pretty good writer by myself,\u201d Lillian said. \u201cI don\u2019t need your suggestions, Google!\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Associated Press writer Jocelyn Gecker contributed to this report from San Francisco.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list<\/a> of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 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