Napa parents ask schools to examine tech use amid worries of student screen time

Like plenty of other parents, Ariana Ervin toured Napa Valley Unified School District classrooms last fall to figure out which kindergarten her son should attend during the 2024-25 school year.

It was an open enrollment period, when district students may request to attend schools outside of the one they’re assigned.

But Ervin, along with fellow parents Mikey Kelly and Livia Manfredi, repeatedly stumbled across the same scene.

“Almost every tour we went on, no matter the time of day or the school that it was, the children were on devices,” said Ervin, like iPads and interactive Promethean white boards.

That experience gave them pause out of concern a high amount of screen time at school could negatively impact students.

Manfredi was worried about the effect classroom screens were having on her daughter, who was already enrolled in transitional kindergarten, after she’d come home saying things like “my brain hurts,” according to Ervin. The others shared her unease.

Kelly and Ervin voiced their concerns during a Feb. 8 district school board meeting. During public comment, Ervin said she’d had many conversations with current or future parents of transitional kindergarten or kindergarten students, who had expressed that “there is no place for iPads in the classrooms of 4- and 5-year-olds.”

“Children have their entire lives, including all of their adult lives, to function in the digital world,” Ervin said.

She referred to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation of limiting screen time for children age 5 and younger to no more than one hour of high-quality educational programming each day.

Kelly added that, at a time when the district has been experiencing declining enrollment, transitional kindergarten spots at Napa’s Stone Bridge School are in high demand — with a long wait list. The early-grade Waldorf education there doesn’t involve screens.

“There’s a reason why people are choosing that school, and it’s because it doesn’t have technology,” Kelly said. “Most of those parents don’t know anything about a Waldorf education; they just want an education like they received as a child.”

The movement has since picked up steam. A group of about a dozen people — now referring to themselves as the coalition LowTech Napa — spoke at a March 7 school board meeting.

Ervin said the coalition had collected over 100 signatures from those who shared their concerns through word of mouth. She read aloud a letter sent to all school board members, noting the district had never run an audit on technology usage in schools or classrooms.

“We believe this has led to an overuse of screens with less than the highest quality educational programming, and that many parents are simply unaware of how much screen time their children have in school each day,” Ervin said.

Transparency around classroom screen time and tech usage remains a key focus of the group.

Ervin pointed out that parents are routinely asked about their child’s screen time by doctors. And she said that parents should know how much screen time their children get at school, so they can make choices at home to fit within guidelines.

Once the district examines screen time in its classrooms, that will lay the groundwork for a “more robust conversation about what is high quality educational programming,” according to Ervin.

“What we want to push the district on is, ‘are you using these screens in the highest quality educational way,’” Ervin said.

School district responds

Julie Bordes, a school district spokesperson, said the district appreciates that LowTech Napa has shared their concerns directly and has been willing to meet. The district agrees “wholeheartedly that technology should be used to enhance student learning and not to replace our valuable teacher-led instruction and teacher and peer interaction.”

And, she added, the recent COVID-19 pandemic — a time when school districts across the country switched to screen-based distance learning amid in-person restrictions — confirmed that “in-person learning with highly trained teachers and support staff is essential to student wellness and success.”

The LowTech Napa concerns have come with direct impact of the pandemic waning, she said, so there is opportunity for the district to take a hard look at its technology use.

“We know there are areas for improvement and refinement,” Bordes said. “We are committed to transparency and will create a plan of action to move forward with this work starting now and through the 2024-25 school year.”

The current process for introducing educational technology in district schools typically involves a pilot process to determine effectiveness, according to Bordes.

Then, if teacher feedback is positive and data shows a positive correlation between the tool and desired student learning outcomes, teachers are “supported, coached and provided professional development opportunities to help them best utilize the tools before they are scaled across a grade level or division,” she said.

The district generally provides guidelines for use of such technology, but teachers are allowed some flexibility so they can use the tools in ways that best meet their students' learning needs, she added.

The district’s instructional services division sets the curriculum and works alongside the technology department to match the instructional needs of students and teachers with technological tools.

Programs purchased for student use go through an approval process, typically after review from groups of educators to determine effectiveness.

Bordes said the district currently uses adaptive programs at the elementary level, such as Dreambox Math and Imagine Language and Literacy, which are useful because they’re responsive to student learning.

Kindergartners are provided with about 15 minutes of language and literacy instruction each day to “further cement lessons they just learned or concepts they are building competency around,” according to Bordes.

“Teachers value these adaptive programs because they allow them to meet the diverse learning needs of students in their classrooms creatively and effectively,” she said.

Ervin said she isn’t opposed to technology in classrooms, but she wants to make sure its use is actually effective — and that the impact of screen time is examined on a collective level.

“Greater oversight by the district will lead to greater transparency, and will allow for a more robust conversation around privacy concerns, headphone usage, screen isolation and what truly qualifies as high quality programming,” Ervin said at the March 7 meeting.

“Our goal is to work with the district to create the best educational environment we possibly can for our young learners.”

You can reach Staff Writer Edward Booth at 707-521-5281 or edward.booth@pressdemocrat.com.