By Barbara A. Preston | June 17, 2026
As districts worldwide grapple with the efficacy of online learning, about a dozen Montgomery parents attended a six-hour school board meeting on June 16. They want to limit children's screen time at school, and during homework. Many cited the Surgeon General's recent advisory regarding exposure to screens — whether they be iPads, Chromebooks, cell phones, television, or laptop computers — 2 hours a day max is suggested for kids from 6-18 years old.
One solution: Montgomery Schools will block YouTube access to students (grades k-8) with school-issued Chromebooks beginning July 1.
"Seeing the amount of recreational YouTube use, solidified the fact that we are going to block YouTube as a service. Only teachers will be able to assign specific clips via Google Classroom. This will eliminate a chunk of screen time at home for students." — Technology Director Jeff Brooks.
"YouTube will no longer be a wide-open playground," Brooks said. "Even through it wasn't a wide open playground to begin with. We always operated YouTube in a restricted educational environment. Students still had the ability to search anything, but certain searches would be blocked because it would trigger a flag in Guardian."
However, students who buy their own computers rather than using the school-issued Chromebooks will have full access to YouTube if their parents permit it. The district can only block it on school-issued computers.
Joanna Malecka of Montgomery put a letter-to-the-editor in The Montgomery News (June issue), asking, "Are we truly helping our children learn by putting so much technology in front of them? As a mom of a third grader, I keep circling back to this question. I’m not anti-technology. Our kids need digital skills. But there is a big difference between teaching digital literacy and relying on screens for everyday learning, especially for children.
"What worries me is how quickly heavy tech use has become the norm. Chromebooks are now embedded in schoolwork. We rarely ask whether that supports early learning."
Malecka created a website titled “Screens with Purpose MTSD,” with poll results, research, and resources. She also started an online petition with 212 signatures titled "Screens With Purpose: Bring Balance Back to New Jersey Classrooms" The petition is directed to Gov. Mikie Sherrill, the NJ Department of Education, the NJ Association of School Administrators, and the NJ Legislature.
Basically, petition asks for a healthier, more balanced approach to technology in schools. "Technology can support learning when it is used intentionally, in limited ways, and for clear educational purposes. But many parents and educators are concerned that screens have become too common in everyday classroom instruction, especially for younger students," according to the petition.
At the meeting, Montgomery Technology Director Brooks and Fiona Borland, the director of Curriculum, Instruction and Staff Development, gave a presentation titled "Classroom Chromebooks: Powerful & Purposeful Technology."
Borland began this presentation, saying, "We have been asked to look into and collect data around how our students use Chromebooks. We looked into the amount of time that students use district-issued classroom Chromebooks in grades K through 8."
For the Montgomery school district, the influx of technology into the classroom has never been about the devices themselves. Instead, it has been an exercise in defining the purpose of those devices in a post-pandemic educational landscape, according to Borland.
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The presentation revealed a pedagogical philosophy that prioritizes human interaction over screen time. “Technology should have a purpose,” Borland noted. “It shouldn’t just be... [replacing] the typewriter or handwriting.”
The district’s approach to technology is stratified by age, reflecting a philosophy of increasing digital responsibility. In kindergarten, usage remains minimal, with six iPads per class primarily reserved for structured station work in literacy and math.
By the time students reach grades 1 through 4, the district uses a "cart-based" model, where Chromebooks are available for student use during specific lessons. A common misconception is that these grades operate on a traditional one-to-one basis, according to the presentation. It is in the middle school years (grades 5 through 8) that the district transitions to a true one-to-one take-home program, facilitating deeper engagement with digital resources.
By high school, the district shifts to a "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) mentality, allowing students to use superior personal computers, mirroring the independence required in higher education and the modern workforce.
To move beyond anecdotal evidence, the district used two disparate data points: Subjective surveys of teacher sentiment and the objective usage data pulled from GoGuardian, a monitoring software that tracks active student-device engagement.
The findings highlighted a "reality gap" between how teachers perceive technology usage and how it is actually employed. In grades 1 and 2, teachers estimated usage at approximately 30 minutes a day, which closely aligned with the software data. However, in the upper middle school, teachers estimated usage at 96 minutes daily, while tracking data registered closer to 195 minutes.
Administrators attributed this significant disparity to factors beyond core instruction: Related arts courses, student-led choice time, and an increase in recreational use as students gain greater autonomy over their online activities.
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The presentation also served as a moment of catharsis for faculty. Administrators acknowledged that the initial process of surveying teachers was met with apprehension. Many staff members feared their responses might be used as a performance metric.
To mitigate these concerns, the administration engaged in direct, in-person conversations across the district. The message was clear: there is no "right" answer. Usage depends on the subject and the learning cycle—a science lab might require no digital tools for weeks, while a writing project might necessitate several consecutive days of heavy screen usage.
According to district data, approximately 70 percent of staff feel the district has achieved a balanced approach to technology. For the remaining 25 percent who expressed a desire for reduction, conversations centered less on instructional quality and more on the challenges of student maturity and the persistent temptation of digital distraction.
Guided by core skills identified by the World Economic Forum—such as analytical thinking, creative thinking, empathy, and active listening—the district maintains that digital tools should serve as a scaffold, not a replacement, for primary instruction.
"There is no place in the district where we have a digital platform that has replaced primary instruction," Borland emphasized, distancing the district from national trends where online platforms are increasingly tasked with teaching math and literacy concepts.
Instead, the district envisions technology as a toolbox. Students are encouraged to develop "digital discernment"—learning not just how to use a spreadsheet or a video editor, but when and why to use them to tell a story or solve a problem.
Kara Alaimo is a Montgomery Township parent of two children in the Montgomery School District (going into kindergarten and second grade). She is also a professor of communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University, advises parents, students and teachers on how to manage screen time. Her book “Over the Influence: Why Social Media Is Toxic for Women and Girls — And How We Can Take It Back” was published in 2024.
"So I study the impact of digital technology on all of us," Alaimo told The Montgomery News. "I have also been contributing to CNN on the subject of what screens are doing to all of us. My second book on this subject will be published next year by Routledge. I'm here this evening because I'm really concerned about screens in schools."
Her second books is a toolkit for parents, educators, therapists, and other adults, teaching them what they need to tell young people about how to protect and empower themselves on screen.
Alaimo, who grew up in Hillsborough, said she attended the recent Montgomery school board meeting to talk about why the school needs policies for responsible screen use in classes.
"There's a few examples that I'm using. One is of a teacher who I spoke with at a webinar for a fabulous group in Pennsylvania called Pencils Over Pixels last week. A 3rd grade teacher was telling me that she was teaching a unit on marine life. And it's one thing to talk to kids about a dolphin. It's another thing to see and hear the dolphin. But I loved the way the teacher used technology in this case.
"She carefully selected the clip in advance of the class. She made sure that it wasn't longer than it needed to be. She embedded it into a PowerPoint so the students didn't see ads, they only saw the clip. And then she sat down and watched it with her students and discussed it afterward.
"I'm a parent who wants my child to be able to see the clip of the dolphin. I also recognize that technology can be especially important for kids with disabilities, but I'm concerned about the uber use of screens in schools, which is what I think is happening here.
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"A parent in the district told me that her child's upper middle school teacher has not taught a single history lesson the entire school year. This child spends 80 minutes in history class, and puts class in quotes on her Chromebook, and then she comes home, and she often does more than one hour of history, homework on her Chromebook.
"Now, the Surgeon General's Office put out an advisory last month that says six to 18 year olds should spend a maximum of two hours per day on screens. As a parent and a researcher, I think that's too much. I wouldn't want my own daughter on a screen for two hours a day.
"But here we have a student spending more than the entire recommended daily limit on screens in her history class alone.
But I would say, I want my children to learn how to use computers. and to learn how to protect and empower themselves online in their technology class. But all of the data tells us that students learn better when they're using pencils and paper.
Daniel Santos, originally from Brazil, is a parent of two children ages three and 12. He works in the pharmaceutical sector.
"I think like many of us have been concerned about our children's use of technology. My personal view is that technology can be an ally. But are we using it too much? You know? I've been living here for 10 years in New Jersey, but mostly in this area. I also lived a few years in Princeton, and its a similar story there.
"I'm concerned about how can we find the balance. What is the right amount of time you should be exposing kids to screens? What is it? In my opinion, you know, I'm a big believer of the rule that you should be around 10% to 20% of their time. If you have a kid who sleeps, let's say, 8 hours a day and is awake 16 hours a day, that would be one to 3 hours.
Santos said he attended the school board meeting because he is alarmed that children in fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grades are exposed more than 2 hours a day — just on the Chromebooks at school.
"And of course, they get more screen exposure at home, because there's TV and iPads and everything. So if the school is giving them two hours of exposure, by the end-of-the-day, they're getting like four to five hours a day, which I think is way more than ideal."
Santos said he has been following the Center for Humane Technology, a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that today's technologies, such as AI and social media, serve humanity.
"They've done an amazing work," Santos said. "And many of those people who founded the Center for Human Technology are the same people who created Instagram. They work for Facebook, they work for Meta. And yet, their recommendation is no Chromebooks or laptops to kids before high school.
"Another big voice is Jonathan Haidt, who is the author of The Anxious Generation book, which is a bestseller. He also says no laptops before high school. My personal opinion, I think that's probably too much. I wouldn't go there. But, I do think we're just exposing these kids too much."
The Anxious Generation argues that the rise of smartphones and social media since the early 2010s has caused a mental health crisis in young people by replacing a play-based childhood with a phone-based one, leading to sleep deprivation, social isolation, and addiction. The book links this "great rewiring" to sharp increases in anxiety, depression, and self-harm, proposing solutions for parents, schools, and governments, including phone-free schools and raising the age for social media access.
