{"id":245534,"date":"2026-05-14T00:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T04:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/14\/a-clash-over-classroom-technology-in-a-philadelphia-school-district\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T00:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T04:30:08","slug":"a-clash-over-classroom-technology-in-a-philadelphia-school-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/14\/a-clash-over-classroom-technology-in-a-philadelphia-school-district\/","title":{"rendered":"A clash over classroom technology in a Philadelphia school district"},"content":{"rendered":"

A clash over classroom technology in a Philadelphia school district<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/edtech-philly-classroom-technology-computer-phone-screens-6aab2bac1d66df1863509b5d5c74fe12<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-14 00:05:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: apnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n

ARDMORE, Pa. (AP) \u2014 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<\/span> 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\u2019 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<\/h2>\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…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A clash over classroom technology in a Philadelphia school district https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/edtech-philly-classroom-technology-computer-phone-screens-6aab2bac1d66df1863509b5d5c74fe12 Publish Date: 2026-05-14 00:05:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":245536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dims.apnews.com\/dims4\/default\/7974346\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/5464x3641+0+1\/resize\/980x653!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F4e%2F14%2F5d3c33318427cfaeb3a00bdb5779%2F65cf1b1a06734a1ba4b217e794e1d068","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245534"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245538,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245534\/revisions\/245538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}