Tech Use in Elementary Schools

[Anonymous]

I’m an APS teacher who lives in DC and we are looking to move into VA. For a myriad of reasons, we don’t want our children attending APS.

One reason that I feel strongly about is the 1:1 technology use in APS as young as Kindergarten. Can anybody share if their elementary students in other districts have devices?

Like I said, we don’t like APS for a myriad of reasons, so this isn’t solely about tech in the classroom and I’m not looking to debate that. I’m simply wondering what districts (if any) don’t use iPads or computers in elementary school, and we can narrow our decision from there. If anybody can speak to the usage in FCPS as well, I’d appreciate it.

Thanks all!

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to your question, but if you're willing to share, I would be really curious to hear more of the reasons why you don't want your kids in APS. Not to debate you, just would appreciate your unique insider perspective.

[Anonymous]

One would think a teacher in APS would be able to ask their colleagues who came from or went to FCPS or ACPS about their tech usage. Odd post OP.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know of a school system in the DMV (or elsewhere—we have family that teach in multiple states) that fits the bill. That ship has sailed for the time being IMO, to the great detriment of student learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One would think a teacher in APS would be able to ask their colleagues who came from or went to FCPS or ACPS about their tech usage. Odd post OP.

NP
I don’t find it odd. I don’t have any colleagues that I know of who came from FCPS or ACPS recently. Any information they have is outdated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know of a school system in the DMV (or elsewhere—we have family that teach in multiple states) that fits the bill. That ship has sailed for the time being IMO, to the great detriment of student learning.

I agree with this. You’d have to go private, even then you’ll have to look.
In my experience with 4 APS elementary schools as teacher/parent I found it varied widely, down to teacher how much was used. In K it was 20 minutes or less per day and ramped up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know of a school system in the DMV (or elsewhere—we have family that teach in multiple states) that fits the bill. That ship has sailed for the time being IMO, to the great detriment of student learning.

I agree with this. You’d have to go private, even then you’ll have to look.
In my experience with 4 APS elementary schools as teacher/parent I found it varied widely, down to teacher how much was used. In K it was 20 minutes or less per day and ramped up

OP here. That’s what I was afraid of :/

Thanks for all the feedback!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to your question, but if you're willing to share, I would be really curious to hear more of the reasons why you don't want your kids in APS. Not to debate you, just would appreciate your unique insider perspective.

Same. I’m curious too. And if you already have kids, OP, are they in DCPS?
-another APS teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One would think a teacher in APS would be able to ask their colleagues who came from or went to FCPS or ACPS about their tech usage. Odd post OP.

Agree, it seems trollish

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to your question, but if you're willing to share, I would be really curious to hear more of the reasons why you don't want your kids in APS. Not to debate you, just would appreciate your unique insider perspective.

Same. I’m curious too. And if you already have kids, OP, are they in DCPS?
-another APS teacher

They are not, they are 2 and 4. As I said, I’m not trying to have a debate if APS is the right system for us. It’s not. A majority of my coworkers have been in APS for many years or have kids who aren’t in elementary, so their experiences weren’t recent. I got feedback on a couple of districts but was trying to crowdsource for more info.

Not sure why it’s considered trollish if I’m just asking about tech use in schools, but there’s DCUM for ya

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can anybody share if their elementary students in other districts have devices?

Alexandria City, Fairfax County, Loudoun County, and Prince William County all use devices in their public elementary schools. I am not sure about Falls Church City. In many of these schools, the devices contain the “electronic textbooks” which are essential (because paper textbooks are being phased out - or already were phased out - at least for some subjects in some grades). Devices might be Chromebooks or laptops, depending on which school or school system. Degree of use varies from system to system, from school to school, and sometimes even from one teacher to another teacher. For example, I know at least a few teachers in FCPS try to reduce use of devices in their own taught classes to the minimum required by FCPS, while other teachers in the same elementary school rely on devices more extensively.


Many privates also have devices in elementary, but there is wide variation among private schools in how/when devices are used. So one would need to explore private schools one by one to evaluate this. Most Montessori schools actively limit device use to their “computer class”, which might be held once or twice a week and then only for maybe 30-60 minutes each time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why it’s considered trollish if I’m just asking about tech use in schools, but there’s DCUM for ya

I do not think OP was a troll post. I do think too much irrelevant information was in the first post, which accidentally distracted many readers here. All that was needed in the initial post was to ask which schools / school systems use tech devices and maybe also how much they rely upon them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to your question, but if you're willing to share, I would be really curious to hear more of the reasons why you don't want your kids in APS. Not to debate you, just would appreciate your unique insider perspective.

Same. I’m curious too. And if you already have kids, OP, are they in DCPS?
-another APS teacher

They are not, they are 2 and 4. As I said, I’m not trying to have a debate if APS is the right system for us. It’s not. A majority of my coworkers have been in APS for many years or have kids who aren’t in elementary, so their experiences weren’t recent. I got feedback on a couple of districts but was trying to crowdsource for more info.

Not sure why it’s considered trollish if I’m just asking about tech use in schools, but there’s DCUM for ya

I wasn’t trying to debate. Just interested in your perspective.

[Anonymous]

OP might want to explore both “Montessori School of Northern VA” and “Montessori School of McLean”, which are separate schools, to see whether either might make sense for their DC. Each offers classes at least through grade 6.

Neither relies much on tech devices. Both use a traditional Montessori curriculum, with open classroom, emphasis upon manipulatives, and so on. Not all students will thrive equally well in an open classroom, of course, so it would be important to evaluate whether that approach is a good fit for one’s DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to your question, but if you're willing to share, I would be really curious to hear more of the reasons why you don't want your kids in APS. Not to debate you, just would appreciate your unique insider perspective.

Same. I’m curious too. And if you already have kids, OP, are they in DCPS?
-another APS teacher

They are not, they are 2 and 4. As I said, I’m not trying to have a debate if APS is the right system for us. It’s not. A majority of my coworkers have been in APS for many years or have kids who aren’t in elementary, so their experiences weren’t recent. I got feedback on a couple of districts but was trying to crowdsource for more info.

Not sure why it’s considered trollish if I’m just asking about tech use in schools, but there’s DCUM for ya

You should post this in the FCPS board and post a new thread here asking about acps and lcps specifically if you want specific info. Your title is too vague to get the answers you seek and there is a separate Fairfax board.