USA parents are opting kids out of school laptops, returning them to pen and paper

By Tyler Kingkade (NBC News)-THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — Julie Frumin broke the news to her 11-year-old son in the minivan on the way home from school.

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 organise 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.

In interviews with a dozen parents, each said they were the first in their district to attempt to opt out — often confounding school officials who weren’t sure whether opting out was legally allowed — but that they felt it was crucial to prove a point.

Emily Cherkin, a former teacher who recently testified before Congress about screen time in education, created a tool kit based on material she prepared to stop her daughter from using school-issued devices in her Seattle middle school two years ago. It includes research on the efficacy of digital learning tools, email templates and suggested questions to ask administrators. Cherkin said she knows of four other families in her district who opted their children out since she did, and her tool kit has been downloaded over 3,000 times.

“For me, opting out is not the end goal — it’s the means to the end,” she said. “And the way I see it is, you force a conversation. It gives permission to other parents to even just start asking questions.”

These families reflect a growing backlash to education technology, driven by concerns about excessive screen time and the harm it causes to youth. What started as anger directed at social media companies has translated to pressure on schools. Their requests present a new challenge for administrators and educators who followed national trends toward more digital learning and providing a laptop for every child.