Parents are pushing back against classroom laptops in Baltimore County schools

James Frank noticed his son’s grades sank significantly after he and the rest of his sixth-grade classmates were issued a laptop by Catonsville Middle School.

Wanting to understand the correlation between the poor grades and the computer, Frank requested his son’s web browser history from the school system. Turns out his son was playing games, searching for answers to homework questions, watching YouTube videos and frequently visiting Google Docs (which students turned into a shareable platform), instead of paying attention to class.

Now Frank has joined a group of Catonsville parents who are calling on Baltimore County Public Schools to reduce how much time students spend on laptops.

A school system that was one of the first Maryland districts to put a laptop in every student’s hands is being asked to take them away from young learners. Parents are also organizing in other Maryland school districts, following a movement emerging around the nation as parents are finding laptops as distracting as smartphones and less effective as learning tools than paper. In response to the outcry, Baltimore County board members said they’re working on a policy to address parent concerns.

Frank said he’s not suggesting a total ban on devices in classrooms, but maybe a sixth grader shouldn’t be given the keys to the entire internet.

“They don’t have the frontal lobe development yet to even consider the idea that they can manage their screen time in an efficient and useful way,” he said.

When his son was in fifth grade, Frank said, teachers heavily monitored students while on computers. He and his wife would notice the books and papers their son would bring home from school.

“This year, we saw hardly any, if any, paper coming home at all,” he said.

Screens for elementary?

Inside a Westowne Elementary School classroom two years ago, kindergarteners put on their headphones and opened their laptops for a 12-minute lesson from the artificial intelligence program, Amira. It’s a digital tool designed to help kids read, and, according to Baltimore County school officials, was responsible for boosting English scores in the district.

But on July 14, Catonsville resident Manjul Holmes told Baltimore County’s school board that she opted her rising first-grader out of the program last fall. She loves the teachers at Westchester Elementary School but the program is “priming our youngest learners to need screens.”

“When we told her we were going to stop using Amira, she got teary-eyed and said that a trophy is given to whomever uses it the most at school,” Holmes told the board.

She and her husband read to their daughter instead. Now, she’s a natural reader, said Holmes.

A 2024 Stanford University-led study found that some education technology can be effective, like for elementary reading skills. However, features like pop-up questions and clickable definitions do not help with reading comprehension, researchers found.

Stanford professor Rebecca Silverman advised school districts to conduct an analysis of any program before deciding to adopt it.

“Is it following the principles of effective practice for the skills you’re targeting with that program?” she asked in the report. “What studies have been done on it? How strong is the company’s own research? Has anybody done any independent research?”

Bill Heiser, Baltimore County’s new superintendent, said that screen usage should be balanced. He referenced a summer program where a group of students were on a device for a specific amount of time, transitioned to learning in a small group with a teacher, then moved to work independently. He said it was an example of a teacher who is “clearly using technology appropriately” and noted that the district’s policy committee will gather input from “many people” before releasing new guidelines.

Amanda Garratt, another Westchester Elementary parent who testified at the July board meeting, noticed her third-grade son was struggling in math, a subject he usually does well in. She learned that he was rushing through math problems to play the education game, Prodigy, a reward for students who finished their work.

“How can children develop focus, perseverance and deep thinking in an environment designed to compete for their attention,” she told the board.

Garratt, who helped form a Schools Beyond Screens chapter in Baltimore County, asked the school board to eliminate Chromebooks for students in kindergarten through second grade and prioritize paper-based, teacher-led instruction.

A mental health therapist, Garratt was also among those who advocated for a phone-free classroom. State lawmakers passed legislation this year that will restrict cellphone use in schools in fall 2027.

Over 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., have Schools Beyond Screens chapters. The L.A. group of parents and teachers was able to get Los Angeles schools to ban screen time for students in early education, kindergarten and first grade.

Betsy Tao, a Montgomery County Public Schools parent who leads Maryland’s Distraction Free Schools, which fights for tech-free schools, said parents in Baltimore City and Baltimore and Howard counties have either started or are about to start a screen-free advocacy campaign. In most districts, Tao said, the fight has been parent-led. Baltimore City, however, is the only Maryland district she’s seen where the superintendent limited screen time for younger students.

It’s up to the superintendents, Tao said, to “create the space for a conversation around how to deal with this.”

In the meantime, Tao said Distraction Free Schools has already started talking to state legislators about a bill to address laptops in classrooms next year.

“So far, every legislator that [we] met with has been like, ‘I am on board to sponsor this,’” she said.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.