Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Rebecca Foscolo acknowledges she was \u201cextra spicy\u201d at a Lower Merion<\/a> school board meeting in June, when the board voted to repeal a policy<\/a> that let parents like her opt their kids out of school-issued laptops and iPads.<\/p>\n Foscolo, who is part of a group of parents demanding that the affluent Montgomery County<\/a> district scale back on screens, could not believe the board was moving ahead with the vote, after parents had pleaded for the option to say no to devices<\/a> they said were imperiling their kids\u2019 ability to learn.<\/p>\n \u201cAll these educated people are telling you you are doing something wrong, and you are sitting there and doing nothing,\u201d Foscolo yelled at the board, while seated in a row in the Lower Merion High School auditorium.<\/p>\n Members of the district\u2019s security came up to Foscolo, who left on her own.<\/p>\n Now she is no longer allowed to attend Lower Merion school board meetings in person, for a year.<\/p>\n After a second outburst during a board policy committee meeting on Aug. 3, Foscolo received a letter from the district\u2019s solicitor, informing her she had violated Lower Merion\u2019s civility policy.<\/p>\n A second parent in the Pencils Over Pixels group, David Smyth, said he had received a similar letter after the meeting.<\/p>\n In his Aug. 4 letter to Foscolo, Lower Merion solicitor Kenneth Roos wrote that at both the June 15 and Aug. 3 board meetings, she \u201cdisplayed disruptive and bullying behavior, including yelling at school board members and administrators while they were conducting board business.\u201d He said her conduct \u201ccontributed to the board needing to go into recess prior to the completion of each meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n The district on Friday announced that its meeting on Monday night, when the board is expected to approve a new technology policy, would be virtual only \u201cdue to disruptions at two recent meetings,\u201d as well as \u201cthreatening comments on social media pages.\u201d It did not say what the social media comments were. <\/p>\n Foscolo, who shouted at the board that \u201cthe way you\u2019re responding is ridiculous\u201d after it cut off public comment on Aug. 3<\/a> before she had a chance to speak, accused the district of violating her constitutional rights.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re basically just trying to bully me and silence me,\u201d Foscolo said in an interview. She and Smyth were banned from attending school board meetings until June 30, 2027. They can watch meeting live streams and submit written comments, Roos said.<\/p>\n The bans come amid ongoing tensions between the Pencils Over Pixels group<\/a> and the 8,500-student Lower Merion School District over school technology use, a battle that has received national attention amid a growing parental movement pushing back on screens in schools<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201dWhile we would have preferred that everyone remained calm, and we recognize that the behavior may have been perceived as disruptive, we do not believe banning concerned community members from all future board meetings is an appropriate or productive response,” the group said in a statement.<\/p>\n In another statement, Pencils Over Pixels said it was \u201cdisappointed\u201d by the decision to make Monday\u2019s meeting virtual.<\/p>\n Any threatening comments \u201cwere not condoned by any member of this group and any threatening language is promptly removed,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n Is it legal?<\/p>\n First Amendment lawyers said the district\u2019s actions in banning residents could be running afoul of their constitutional rights.<\/p>\n \u201cUnless there\u2019s a threat of violence, there\u2019s really no basis\u201d to ban someone from public meetings, said Sara Rose, deputy legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. A person who is \u201ctruly disruptive\u201d can be removed from a meeting, she said, and if the district referred the matter to prosecutors, a court could decide to ban the person.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the school district cannot unilaterally tell people they cannot attend future meetings,\u201d Rose said, adding: \u201cI haven\u2019t found a single decision that says that\u2019s permissible.\u201d<\/p>\n The ACLU in November 2024 sued the Souderton Area School District<\/a> after it banned two parents and a student from school properties, accusing them of threatening a school board member. The parents and student, who were part of a group of demonstrators protesting the board president, said they were wrongly accused, and the district lifted the ban in March 2025.<\/p>\n Other restrictions on speech during school board meetings have also led to legal battles. In 2022, the Pennsbury School District agreed to pay $300,000<\/a> to four men who had sued the district, saying their public comments at board meetings had been illegally curtailed. A federal judge had previously directed the district to stop enforcing a policy that prohibited abusive, offensive, or personally directed public comments<\/a>. <\/p>\n Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel at the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, questioned Lower Merion\u2019s decision to end public comment after 45 minutes during its Aug. 3 policy committee meeting.<\/p>\n While government agencies are allowed to have guidelines for how long public comment can last, \u201cthere has to be flexibility,\u201d Melewsky said. If there is not enough time to hear every person on a controversial issue, she said, agencies are supposed to schedule another meeting to finish the public comment, and \u201cany proposed action has to be put off as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked why the district believed its actions were legal, spokesperson Amy Buckman said that residents \u201cwere advised that intentionally disrupting a lawful meeting or the administration of a government function is a criminal offense in Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n She noted the board\u2019s policy for committee meetings includes a 45-minute time limit for public comment on agenda items, \u201cunless extended by the board for special circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n Pencils Over Pixels said its members had been \u201cassured by the board that the Aug. 3 meeting would be an opportunity to engage with the policy committee\u201d and receive feedback to their questions about the district\u2019s new technology policy.<\/p>\n While Pencils Over Pixels said it had urged its members to remain \u201ccalm and professional,\u201d some \u201cwere rightfully upset that they were unable to engage in dialogue with the committee as promised,\u201d the group said. \u201cUnfortunately, their emotions governed their behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n Frustrations around tech use<\/p>\n