Julie Frumin broke the news to her 11-year-old son in the minivan on the way home from school.
His laptop was being taken away.
His face lit up. “Really?” he asked, beaming with excitement.
It wasn’t a punishment. It was a victory Frumin had fought hard for. Her third-grade daughter had already opted out of using school-assigned laptops in favor of pen and paper, and her son wanted to follow suit.
The middle schooler had been begging to opt out, citing headaches from the Chromebook screen and a dislike of the AI chatbot recently integrated into it.
“I’m just so happy that they’re getting an analog education for now,” Frumin said.
Parents across the country are taking steps to stop their children from using school-issued Chromebooks and iPads, citing concerns about distractions and access to inappropriate content that they fear hampers their kids’ education.
The parents have started to organize through email and in group chats with hundreds of members, swapping tips and creating online resources for other families to use when approaching their own district about alternatives to school-issued devices.