{"id":3595,"date":"2026-08-04T16:12:06","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=3595"},"modified":"2026-08-04T16:12:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:12:06","slug":"lower-merion-shut-down-a-school-board-meeting-amid-shouts-from-parents-angry-about-tech-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=3595","title":{"rendered":"Lower Merion shut down a school board meeting amid shouts from parents angry about tech use"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div><audio><\/audio><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>A Lower Merion school board committee on Monday advanced new rules on when screens should be used in classrooms, while facing anger from parents who want more limits on technology.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=3593\">The annual Danny Rumph Classic tips off this Thursday. Here\u2019s everything you need to know.<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>The policy committee, which has been hammering out a technology policy after parental backlash to excessive screen time, went into recess and later shut down its meeting in the district\u2019s administrative offices in response to shouts from people in the crowd.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cWhen you are disrupting a public meeting you are actually breaking the law,\u201d school board president Kerry Sautner said, as a parent in the crowd, David Smyth, called on the committee, which had stopped public comment after 45 minutes, to allow more people to speak.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Sautner \u2014 who said earlier that 45 minutes was typical for the committee\u2019s public comment period \u2014 told Smyth he could leave, or stay and listen. When he answered that he wanted more public comment, the committee ended the in-person meeting and switched to Zoom to vote to advance the policy.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>The policy now goes before the full school board for a vote on August 17. It sets new guidelines for how technology is to be used in Lower Merion, one of the Philadelphia area\u2019s most affluent districts, amid a national debate over whether excessive technology use is impairing kids\u2019 educations.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Lower Merion\u2019s proposed policy scales back on screens for the youngest students \u2014specifying that kids in kindergarten, first and second grades will not be issued individual devices. Previously, kindergartners and first graders were given iPads, while second graders received Chromebooks.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cMany of you came and said, \u2018I don\u2019t think my kindergartener needs a one-to-one device.\u2019 I don\u2019t disagree with you,\u201d Superintendent Frank Ranelli said at Monday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Under the proposed policy, any technology use for K-2 students \u201cshall be minimal, highly structured, and limited to specific educational purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Students in third and fourth grades will not have personal devices, but will have \u201can assigned log-in\u201d that they can use to access computers on classroom carts, according to a district spokesperson, Amy Buckman.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>In grades five and six, students will be assigned devices, but won\u2019t bring them home unless their parents want them to, Ranelli said.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>While bringing computers home becomes the default by seventh and eighth grade, Ranelli said students who choose not to won\u2019t be penalized.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>But, the superintendent said, families \u201ccannot decline technology\u201d in the new policy \u2014 a bitter point of contention throughout school board debates earlier this year, as families demanded to opt out of devices.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>The board voted in June to scrap its former policy, which contained language requiring the district to serve families who didn\u2019t consent to being issued a computer. While more than 800 parents signed a petition supporting the right to opt out, Ranelli said doing so was not possible.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=3591\">Why Pa. repealed a 100-year-old midwife law | Morning Newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Parents have continued to organize under a Pencils Over Pixels group.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>At Monday\u2019s meeting, Matthew Posey, a district parent, read from what he said was an April 9 email obtained through a Right-to-Know request, indicating that Ranelli \u201cinstructed\u201d Sautner to repeal the policy, according to Posey.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Posey said Sautner wrote back, \u201cGot it.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cWe do not pay premium local taxes to have this insulting, rubber-stamp school board governance,\u201d Posey said. He accused the board of treating months of public meetings over technology use as \u201can inconvenience to be managed,\u201d rather than a genuine consideration of parental concerns.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Sautner said she would have to review the email Posey mentioned, but said she sometimes responds \u201cgot it\u201d to indicate she has received a message.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cWe hold the superintendent accountable,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is literally our job as the board.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Parents pressed the committee for answers Monday on how the policy would work in practice. Ranelli said the district had been training principals in a \u201cdefault to off\u201d philosophy, to instruct their teachers to tell students that if they aren\u2019t actively using their computers for an activity, \u201cwe want your screens to be down. Or we don\u2019t want them at their desks.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>While rules accompanying the policy include some guidelines for how much screen time kids should be getting each day \u2014 from 30-45 minutes in third and fourth grades, to up to 90 minutes in fifth through eighth grades \u2014 there are no parameters for high school.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>School officials said that was too difficult, given how many classes high school students have in a given day.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cI want to make sure we\u2019re not handcuffing the teachers,\u201d Ranelli said.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Ranelli also said the district had stepped up efforts to block inappropriate websites, including all Google sites, which kids had used to play games, he said. It\u2019s also blocked all streaming services and AI summaries, Ranelli said.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>He said the district \u2014 and parents \u2014 would be able to better monitor kids\u2019 online activity through a new Securly program, which allows teachers to monitor what kids are looking at in class. Parents, meanwhile, can block more categories of website and set schedules for their kids\u2019 devices out of school hours, Ranelli said.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Smyth, the parent whose interruptions led the board to end the meeting, said in an interview that parents feel like board members are \u201cchecking a box and not really interested\u201d in their comments.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cIn our mind, the big sin is really one-to-one devices,\u201d said Smyth, who has children in seventh and eighth grade. He had planned to ask if the district will be tracking time spent by students on various computer programs \u2014 to set metrics for \u201cwhat would have them reconsider\u201d the amount of technology use in classrooms.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=3589\">Democrats accuse Green Party candidate in Lehigh Valley district of Republican meddling<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A school board committee on Monday advanced new rules on when screens should be used in classrooms. The full  board will vote on the regulations later this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lower Merion shut down a school board meeting amid shouts from parents angry about tech use - Corporate Movers USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=3595\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lower Merion shut down a school board meeting amid shouts from parents angry about tech use - Corporate Movers USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A school board committee on Monday advanced new rules on when screens should be used in classrooms. 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