A Guardian report published Oct. 27 describes how Bay Area parents, many of them engineers and product people at tech companies, are organizing to cut back screen use in public schools. Some of them already pay $40,000 a year or more for screen-free private schools like San Francisco Waldorf.
What has changed locally
- San Mateo-Foster City School District: After more than 550 parents signed a petition, the board adopted a pilot "print-first" K-5 math curriculum. The San Mateo Record reports it ends 30 minutes of mandatory daily Chromebook use. TK-2 reading instruction is screen-free this school year except for some online assessments, and the district is moving from one Chromebook per student to shared carts.
- Mountain View: Schools are moving away from i-Ready, an adaptive reading and math program, the Guardian reports.
- Palo Alto: Public schools have banned "smart" glasses.
- San Mateo high schools: The Guardian reports that a San Mateo Union High School District task force on AI included volunteers from large tech companies, one of them from Google's AI division.
The equity worry
Researchers quoted by the Guardian, including Stanford education professor Antero Garcia, worry that wealthier families can leave for private schools or lobby their districts, while lower-income districts end up with the screen-heavy tools richer ones are dropping.
San Mateo-Foster City has also said it will form a Technology Task Force to recommend device limits by grade level. The Record reports no first meeting date has been announced.