Arabic version: أهالي وادي السيليكون يضغطون على المدارس للحد من التكنولوجيا في الصفوف

According to The Guardian, Silicon Valley parents are seeking to reduce classroom screen use in both private and public schools, drawing on firsthand knowledge of the technology industry. Some families are choosing private schools with screen-free approaches, while others are organizing for changes in local districts.

German Gil, a software engineer who has worked at companies including Netflix, Facebook and GitHub, enrolled his daughter Victoria at San Francisco Waldorf school. The private school emphasizes nature-based play, and fourth-grade students bind books by hand rather than work on Chromebooks. Kindergarten tuition is $40,000 a year and high school costs close to $60,000, but executive director Lauren Smith said early-childhood applications have grown notably and many new parents work in tech.

Parents have also questioned how early devices enter public classrooms. Jillian Kolonski said her five-year-old daughter was sent home with a Chromebook for math practice, while Palo Alto college counselor Candice Wei raised concerns about screens, YouTube and generative AI in schools. In 2025, 99% of teachers surveyed by the New York Times said students received school-issued devices, while 81% said their schools provided screens by kindergarten.

San Mateo public schools have stopped sending Chromebooks home with kindergarten through second-grade students, and its high schoolers face a blanket cell-phone ban. Mountain View schools are moving away from i-Ready, while Palo Alto public schools have prohibited smart glasses. Advocates warn that lower-resourced districts may struggle to make similar changes, as staff salaries are schools’ largest cost and tight budgets can make replacing people with technology difficult to resist.