Low screen elementary school?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| I think our public is too screen heavy for elementary school. I think students should have computer class and be taught skills like typing or coding but I don’t like that our school uses them for math and reading instruction. Are there any private schools that intentionally limit screen time? We are in Silver Spring but can commute. We are interfaith Jewish-Christian (not Catholic) but happy to explore religious schools as well. |
Anonymous
| Most private schools limit screen time. My kid is at Norwood in lower elementary and there is very little screen time. No Chromebooks. I think they occasionally use iPads for some supplemental reading activities, but 98% of their instruction is not on a screen. |
Anonymous
| Oh and all the private schools I’m aware of ban phones during the day, at least for K-8. I’m not sure about the high schools. |
Anonymous
Christ Episcopal School (K-8) is great with very linited screen time all the way through 8th grade . |
Anonymous
| NPS |
Anonymous
|
Good on you for seeking to limit screen time. It’s become a brain killing babysitter in public schools—even worse when all the “homework” is some online thing.
Our Catholic schools wouldn’t be right for you but thankfully I’ve heard most private schools are attuned to this issue. Wherever you go, please continue to voice your concerns. The more parents push back against this creeping screen time problem, the better it will be. |
Anonymous
Totally agree. The other thing is that the smaller class sizes and the existing culture of limiting screens in the classrooms makes it easier to have conversations as a parent group about how to handle cell phones for the kids. Our K-8 already bans phones at school, so that’s taken care of. Our kid is still young, but we’ve started talking with other parents about having a sort of collective agreement about waiting on cell phones and/or focusing on phones like Gabb, which doesn’t have internet or social media. It won’t be perfect, but I think it can help. Every parent we’ve talked to has said they’re very concerned about social media exposure for their kids, and they’ve said they’d definitely be willing to wait on giving their kid access to any of it, especially if others agree, so there isn’t peer pressure. |
Anonymous
| Sheridan for sure! Sheridan also has their mountain campus, which is basically the antithesis of screen time! |
Anonymous
| Christ Episcopal School |
Anonymous
| I am so ready to be done with screens in classrooms. Technology isn’t content consumption. Technology is tools. Like making fires or coding or drawing or understanding the elements of nature and how humans and machines collaborate. I hope we can end screens in classrooms and ban personal devices so our kids can actually connect with real people. |
Anonymous
NPS has screens. It is a ' traditional' school in some ways, BUT not screen free. |
Anonymous
| River School seems to be screen-free in the lower elementary grades. Teachers sometimes pull up an image/video on a laptop to show students, but the students do not have tablets/chromebooks in the younger grades. (Not sure about the older grades since my child is not there yet, but the head of school regularly talks about research around screens, so I would expect they are limited in the upper elementary grades as well.) |
Anonymous
| Washington Waldorf School |
Anonymous
| NPS. Not totally screen free but very very minimal. |
Anonymous
|
Montessori Schools generally limit screens to a 30-60 minute 1x/week typing+computers class. Exceptions might exist as the term Montessori is not trademarked, but are unlikely.
On the VA side, Montessori School of Northern VA and Montessori School of McLean are options worth exploring which offer elementary grades. |