On an April morning in downtown San Diego, Elizabeth Johnson and a half-dozen other parents with children in the San Diego Unified School District gathered to protest.
Johnson stuck letters onto a piece of cardstock to spell “teachers over tech.” Other signs read “less screens, more humans” and “ed tech is the biggest grift in education.”
The group is part of the local chapter of Schools Beyond Screens.
They stood in front of the Manchester Grand Hyatt outside of a sold-out conference, where school district leaders, college presidents, tech executives and startup founders were speaking about the latest in artificial intelligence and educational technology.
Johnson and a growing number of other parents are asking the district to reevaluate the role technology plays in its classrooms. They’re concerned about kids’ learning, attention spans, eyesight, privacy and social skills.
A resolution on the issue could go before the school board as soon as next month.
Parents push back
Johnson started worrying about screens even before she became a parent. In 2010, she was studying to become a psychologist and learned about the drawbacks. There were already studies linking high mobile phone use to depression, stress and sleep deprivation.
“I thought that if I ever had kids of my own, I would do everything I could to give them a screen-free childhood,” she said.
When her daughter started kindergarten at Ocean Beach Elementary, she began using a Chromebook at school.
“It was ubiquitous,” Johnson said. “It kind of made me sit up in a different way. I didn't realize just how much they were going to be on it.”
She remembers the first time she heard her daughter say “smash to subscribe,” something YouTube vloggers tell viewers to do to the subscription button on their profile.
“It really gave me pause, because we are so intentional about the things our kids consume, from the food they eat to the books they read,” she said. “If we watch a documentary or something, we’re pretty particular. The kids are five years old once. I don’t want them to see things they can’t unsee.”
In the four years since her daughter started kindergarten, Johnson said Chromebook use has varied depending on the teacher.
“I think there are some teachers that really believe in the efficacy of digital learning platforms. They believe that this is the gold standard, and they feel grateful to have access to these programs,” she said.
One of her daughter’s teachers didn't use Chromebooks in class or send them home, she said. They stayed in a bin in the classroom.
During a May 21 school board meeting, a parent told the board that his kids and their classmates have accessed adult content on their Chromebooks while at school, first in fourth grade and now in sixth grade.
“Blocksi is not cutting it,” he told the board, referring to the program that allows teachers to monitor students’ screen use and parents to block certain websites.
In San Diego Unified, kindergarteners and first graders have Chromebooks in their classrooms. In second grade, the district gives students Chromebooks to use at home and at school. They’re replaced when students reach sixth grade and ninth grade.
This made sense in years past, Johnson said. But not anymore.
“There was a point where giving everyone a laptop was the great equalizer. ‘Hey, not just the rich kids have tech at home. Now, this is for people who have been systematically disenfranchised or people who don't have as much access and as many resources,’” she said.
Now, she said, she’s privileged to know about the drawbacks of screen-based learning and the research that backs it up.
A nationwide discussion
Lawmakers across the country are drafting legislation to try to curb screen use in schools. New laws in Tennessee and Alabama limit device use among young students.
In January, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee heard testimony on kids’ screen time.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) chairs the committee. The rise of social media and smartphone use has hurt kids’ mental health, confidence and attention spans, he said during his opening remarks.
“There aren't many parents who think it has become easier to help with schoolwork or to cut down on screen time when schools send their kids home with a personal tablet,” he said.
Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, told the committee that standardized test scores started declining around 2012, when smartphones and social media became popular.
“One reason for that? The use of phones and tablets and laptops for leisure purposes during the school day,” she said.
In a study, Twenge found that declines in academic performance were larger in countries where students spent more time using devices for leisure purposes during school hours.
She said one thing districts can do is prevent that from happening. Her recommendations include blocking social media, streaming services like Netflix and pornography sites on school-issued devices.
Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath also spoke to the committee. He pointed to research that shows reading comprehension and retention are stronger on paper than on screens. And he said handwritten note-taking helps students process and remember information better than they would on a laptop.
“We now have the clear understanding of why tech does not work for learning,” he told the committee. “It is all biological. It's not that the tech isn't being used well enough, we haven't been trained enough, we need better programs. It's, we have evolved biologically to learn from other human beings, not from screens, and screens circumvent that process.”
Some studies back up Horvath’s message. Others don’t.
A 2019 analysis of a range of studies – including those of elementary, high school and college students — found stronger reading skills and comprehension on paper than on screens. Another study found that screens didn’t hurt first graders’ reading comprehension if they were accustomed to using computers at school.
A 2020 meta-analysis found that college students who handwrote notes scored better than those who took notes on a laptop. A 2022 meta-analysis found little difference in test performance between the two.
Renne Catalano-Gussman also has young kids at Ocean Beach Elementary. For her, Horvath’s testimony made something clear.
“Learning works best when students are in practices that are teacher-led, pencil and paper, and specifically not on screens,” she said. “What's awesome about having that data now is that it's validating people's intuitions.”
District-level change
In April, the Los Angeles Unified School District voted to limit its students’ screen time, especially in younger grades. The push was led by a Los Angeles chapter of Schools Beyond Screens.
During the April 21 meeting, board member Taylor Ortiz Franklin said it was necessary to give devices to students during the pandemic. At the time, she said, she didn’t have kids of her own.
“I have seen personally how distracting screens can be in our homes, our communities, and of course, our schools,” she said. “We want to be places of learning, not places of distraction. And so I appreciate the advocates who've been coming to us. You've really been speaking to our hearts.”
On May 19, the LAUSD board discussed a preliminary plan. It would eliminate screen time before second grade. It would also require parents to opt in to take-home devices starting next school year.
Johnson and Catalano-Gussman lead San Diego’s chapter of Schools Beyond Screens.
The group has proposed a resolution for San Diego Unified that would direct the district to set daily and weekly screen time limits, block YouTube on school-issued devices and require instructional apps to be ad-free.
It would also allow parents to opt their students out of using devices during the school day.
“What we'd like to see for next year is a path for opting out that has reasonable accommodations and supports teachers in making those accommodations,” Catalano-Gussman said. “When families ask for something different, that burden falls on the teachers, and that’s unfair. So how can we create a path for parents to opt out of Chromebook use or specific digital application use, and then how can we support our teachers in making that path simple?”
San Diego Unified declined requests to interview Superintendent Fabiola Bagula and other administrators about the use of screens in classrooms. Spokesperson James Canning said Bagula has been talking with various groups about screen use.
“Before the national discussion on screen use grabbed folks’ attention, our instructional technology team along with IT were already working on it as part of their ongoing efforts around promoting good digital citizenship,” he wrote in an email. “That work is underway and continuing.”
Richard Barrera, president of the district’s school board, said he's been working with Schools Beyond Screens to draft a resolution.
“We're going to be asking the superintendent to develop a comprehensive plan that weighs the benefits of multiple technologies against the risks to young people,” he said in an interview.
San Diego Unified started buying laptops and tablets for students in 2009.
The district distributed more than 47,000 Chromebooks to students in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic moved school online. Chromebooks cost the district about $450 each to replace, the district said last year. Barrera said the district has mostly paid for Chromebooks with facilities bond money.
The expenses go beyond the computers. The district also pays for online programs – some for the whole district, and some for specific grade levels. They’re paid for with general funds, Barrera said.
A list of district-funded programs is available on the Instructional Technology Department’s website. The district pays for a program called Mystery Science for kindergarten through fifth grade. The middle school curriculum includes Amplify’s math, English and science programs.
Barrera said districts have been buying educational technology “with a lot of assumptions built in.”
“Frankly, we've spent a lot of time over many years listening to technology companies, contractors, consultants, selling us on what they think are panaceas,” he said.
Barrera said he wants teachers to be involved in shaping any new district policies. Right now, he said, many decisions about technology use in classrooms are left up to teachers. But Barrera said the recent push for tighter cell phone restrictions reflects broad concerns about distraction in class.
“I think parents and teachers know a lot,” he said. “And I think it's time for us as a school system to listen to them.”
