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A growing number of parents are trying to get their kids off school-issued laptops and tablets entirely, and asking for printed textbooks and handwritten assignments instead. What started as scattered requests from individual families has turned into an organized, multi-state push, with at least 16 states now considering or enacting legislation on classroom screen time and education technology.
The fight is playing out this week in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, a suburban Philadelphia district where the school board is set to vote on a policy that would end the device exemption process some families have used to keep their children off district-issued laptops and tablets. A parent group called Pencils Over Pixels has organized in response, and more than 50 community members showed up to a recent policy meeting to push back.
What Is Happening in Districts Across the Country
The Lower Merion vote is a local flashpoint in a fight playing out nationwide. Parents in multiple states have formed informal networks to share tactics for getting their children off school-issued Chromebooks and iPads, requesting printed materials and handwriting assignments in their place, according to reporting from the Associated Press and NBC News. Arlington, Virginia parents joined a similar national pushback earlier this year, and coverage in outlets from the Christian Science Monitor to ABC affiliates has tracked the spread of the movement through the spring and summer.
Los Angeles took the most sweeping action so far. The LA school board passed a resolution eliminating devices for students through second grade, setting daily and weekly screen limits for older grades, blocking YouTube on school devices, and banning device use at lunch and recess in elementary and middle school.
Lower Merion has taken the opposite approach. District officials have said it is not workable to let hundreds of students step away from technology woven into the daily curriculum, and the proposed policy removes the exemption process some families had been using. At a recent committee meeting, public comment was cut short after 45 minutes, board members moved into a closed session, and the meeting continued over a video call after a recess. Parent groups say records they obtained through a public records request show the decision to end the exemption process originated with the superintendent’s office rather than the board itself. District spokesperson Amy Buckman said the board president who led the meeting was acting within her role as an ex-officio member of all board committees.
Which States Already Have Rules on the Books
Utah and Alabama were first out of the gate. Utah’s HB 273, signed in March 2026, directs the state board of education to build model policies with age-based screen limits, bars almost all classroom screen time for kindergarten through third grade outside of computer science standards, and moves toward letting parents of older students request a device exemption. Alabama passed a companion law setting similar early-elementary restrictions around the same time.
Iowa capped digital instruction at 60 minutes a day for kindergarten through fifth grade, with carve-outs for special education, testing, and computer science classes. Four states in total have passed laws restricting or regulating screen time for students from childcare through fifth grade this year, and at least 16 states, including Iowa, Vermont, and Virginia, have introduced bills to reevaluate screen time or review education technology contracts. The education technology industry has pushed back hard against the wave of bills, arguing that blanket limits do not account for how differently software is used across subjects and grade levels.
None of the current state laws go as far as what Pennsylvania parents are asking for in Lower Merion: a guaranteed, district-wide exemption process available to any family who wants one, regardless of grade or class. That gap between what a handful of state laws currently guarantee and what parent groups are demanding is a big part of why individual district votes, like the one in Lower Merion this week, are drawing outsized attention.
What Experts Say About Screen Time in the Classroom
Pediatric researchers have been raising concerns about classroom screen exposure for several years, and the evidence has only grown. A National Institutes of Health study found that children who spent more than two hours a day on screen-based activities scored lower on language and thinking tests, with some children logging seven or more hours a day showing measurable thinning of the brain’s cortex. Developmental pediatricians generally recommend little to no screen exposure for children under three, and caution against unstructured or recreational screen use at any age.
Dr. Erin Amini, a pediatrician and a parent in the Lower Merion district, told local reporters that K-12 education happens at a stage when children’s brains are especially sensitive to their environment, and that emerging research links prolonged screen exposure to anxiety, depression, attention difficulties, sleep disruption, and postural problems from extended device use. She argued that school technology policy should weigh pediatric health and neurodevelopment alongside academic outcomes, not academic outcomes alone.
Teachers have their own concerns, separate from the health research. A survey from the EdWeek Research Center found that 27 percent of educators say one-to-one computing, where every student gets an assigned device, has hurt classroom management, with teachers spending more time policing screens than teaching. That finding gives the parent-led pushback an unlikely ally in some classrooms.
Not every expert or administrator agrees the story is one-sided. Supporters of school technology point to the role devices play in individualized learning, access to updated materials, and preparing students for a workforce that runs on digital tools. Districts resisting exemption requests, including Lower Merion, argue that carving out exceptions for hundreds of students creates a logistical and instructional burden that a printed alternative cannot fully solve.
What This Means for Parents
If a fight like this is not yet happening in your district, the national trend suggests it might be soon. Parents who want to reduce their child’s school screen time have a few starting points. Check your state’s current legislation. At least 16 states have introduced or passed bills addressing classroom screen time or ed-tech policy this year, and some now require districts to offer some form of accommodation. Ask your district directly whether a device exemption or reduced-device track already exists. Some districts, like those in Los Angeles, have adopted formal limits without parents needing to request anything. Others, like Lower Merion, are moving in the opposite direction.
If you do request an exemption, put it in writing and ask for a specific answer about what alternative materials your child will receive. A verbal exemption with no printed backup can leave a student without either. Parent groups organizing around this issue, including Pencils Over Pixels in Pennsylvania, publish templates and public meeting schedules that make it easier to track a district’s timeline and add a public comment.
Attending a school board meeting can influence a decision more than parents expect. In Lower Merion, more than 50 parents and grandparents showed up to the committee meeting that advanced the policy, and public comment shaped the record even where it did not change the vote. A records request can also be worth filing where state law allows it. Parent organizers in Lower Merion say a public records request revealed internal messages showing the decision to end the exemption process started with district administration rather than the school board, information that only surfaced after a parent asked for it directly.
For screen time outside school hours, pediatric guidance has not changed even as the classroom debate heats up: little to no recreational screen time for children under two, limited and supervised use for preschoolers, and consistent household limits for school-age kids regardless of how much time they log in class. If your child’s district issues a device that also pings for homework or school email after hours, treat that time as part of your daily screen budget, not separate from it.
The Bigger Takeaway
The Lower Merion vote is one school board in one state, but it captures a tension playing out in districts nationwide. Parents pushing for less screen time are not a fringe group anymore. They are organized, cite pediatric research, and increasingly file records requests to see how decisions get made behind closed doors. Districts, meanwhile, are balancing genuine instructional and logistical costs against a wave of parental concern that is not going away.
The fight also cuts across the usual political lines. Parent groups pushing for printed materials over screens include families motivated by child development research, families concerned about student privacy and data collection on district-owned devices, and families who simply want their children handwriting more and typing less. Districts on both sides of the debate, whether adding limits in Los Angeles or resisting them in Lower Merion, say they are trying to serve the majority of families in a system built around shared curriculum and shared technology. However this particular vote lands, the underlying question, how much of a school day should run through a screen, is not close to settled anywhere, and parents in districts that have not yet had this debate should expect it eventually to reach them too.