At home, Pooja Garg’s children don’t have phones or tablets. She monitors what they watch on Netflix.
But when her sixth grader goes to school in the Lower Merion School District, “he’s gaming all the time,” Garg said — on a school-issued Chromebook. When Garg has volunteered during indoor recess, kids are playing on computers.
“They’re not thinking critically,” Garg said. “They’re on their laptops.”
Garg was among dozens of Lower Merion parents, and some students, who voiced their frustrations with the district’s use of technology at a community meeting Monday at Harriton High School.
The meeting came amid a mounting parental backlash to technology in schools that has been playing out in communities across the region, and country.
“We’re hearing from parents constantly on this issue,” said Alex Bird Becker, a Wallingford-Swarthmore parent who is co-lead of PA Unplugged, a group pushing back on devices in schools.