Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a major problem at some schools and it's a legitimate reason to avoid a school. Walking the halls and common areas of some schools on tours, kids are doing their work during the school day. Others--Potomac was the worst offender--the kids are all staring at their phones in the middle of the school day. Take the phones away!

Same thing at Maret. Every kid in the hallways glued to their phone - admissions saying "we trust the kids to make healthy decisions" LOL you don't trust addicts!

There are US kids at Maret who won’t put their phone down to go outside for a fire drill unless forced to do so.

We toured Maret. But we decided not to apply once a 6th-grade classroom teacher told us they use GenAI to write an essay.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a major problem at some schools and it's a legitimate reason to avoid a school. Walking the halls and common areas of some schools on tours, kids are doing their work during the school day. Others--Potomac was the worst offender--the kids are all staring at their phones in the middle of the school day. Take the phones away!

Same thing at Maret. Every kid in the hallways glued to their phone - admissions saying "we trust the kids to make healthy decisions" LOL you don't trust addicts!

Or "kids" who need guidance, not adults who simply throw up their hands and look the other way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a major problem at some schools and it's a legitimate reason to avoid a school. Walking the halls and common areas of some schools on tours, kids are doing their work during the school day. Others--Potomac was the worst offender--the kids are all staring at their phones in the middle of the school day. Take the phones away!

Same thing at Maret. Every kid in the hallways glued to their phone - admissions saying "we trust the kids to make healthy decisions" LOL you don't trust addicts!

There are US kids at Maret who won’t put their phone down to go outside for a fire drill unless forced to do so.

St Jerome institute. High school. No screens whatsoever. It can be done. But yes it's Catholic so YMMV.

WWS is no-screens in elementary grades and has a very thoughtful introduction to tech in middle school. My child is very happy there.

What grade? This really varies by school, but unfortunately many many privates have jumped onto the edtech bandwagon.

I guess I should have some grace and perspective, as our school is very good about no phones on during the day.

Sorry for confusion. This is high school, I am just surprised by how much time is spent doing and submitting work on the screen, but I guess that sounds like it’s not too unusual and I should count my blessings that the phone is away successfully

Anonymous wrote:We are surprised how integrated the screen device is embedded into our private school curriculum. All homework is completed in them, some textbooks are electronic only, all assignments come through the LMS, etc.

It feels very similar to our local publics, but I was hoping for less of screen time.

Anyone comment on their school; ours is small so Im reluctant to post as I have talked to the administrators about reducing screentime and was politely dismissed (not surprisingly, but a girl can try!).

This has been the case for maybe 20 years now. I was a math tutor for a long time, and I remember tutoring middle school kids (in DC) in the early 2010s and realizing no one had paper syllabi anymore. Once the cloud-based LMS became a thing, everyone got on board really fast. Assuming your kid isn't in a lower school, I don't think this alone is unusual or that bad.

To me, that's different from the phone/device issue. What I appreciate about our school is there's zero phones if you're at school and there are significant limits on tablets, laptops, etc. Especially in middle school, there's very little on a screen during the actual school day.

Anonymous wrote:This is a major problem at some schools and it's a legitimate reason to avoid a school. Walking the halls and common areas of some schools on tours, kids are doing their work during the school day. Others--Potomac was the worst offender--the kids are all staring at their phones in the middle of the school day. Take the phones away!

Same thing at Maret. Every kid in the hallways glued to their phone - admissions saying "we trust the kids to make healthy decisions" LOL you don't trust addicts!

What grade? If k-8 that would be very concerning to me. Screens hurt vulnerable students and dim the curiosity of strong ones. Private high schools have pulled back on screens (at least the Catholic ones) and it is used to submit work and scheduling but textbooks, notebooks more traditional methods are used in class. Even laptops away in class Thank God!

If your DC is in k-8, look into classical schools. They are no-tech. Moved mine so as to avoid the screens all day. You really lose a lot of control with the high school kids and phones outside of school hours so I see no reason to waste away the years I do have control.

This is a major problem at some schools and it's a legitimate reason to avoid a school. Walking the halls and common areas of some schools on tours, kids are doing their work during the school day. Others--Potomac was the worst offender--the kids are all staring at their phones in the middle of the school day. Take the phones away!

This comes up so often. Here are a few threads you can check out.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1296023.page

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1193777.page

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1285183.page

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1291620.page

I'm a teacher in a private high school. We've seen a dramatic reduction in screentime during the school day since the pandemic.

But I think some of the things you describe -- like students and parents having access to assignments on the LMS, so that kids who are out sick can see assignments, parents can see what kids are working on, etc . . . are here to stay.

What grade? I don’t think this is the sort of thing you can expect the school to change. If it’s important to you, you really need to dig deep when you’re doing the school search unfortunately.

We are surprised how integrated the screen device is embedded into our private school curriculum. All homework is completed in them, some textbooks are electronic only, all assignments come through the LMS, etc.

It feels very similar to our local publics, but I was hoping for less of screen time.

Anyone comment on their school; ours is small so Im reluctant to post as I have talked to the administrators about reducing screentime and was politely dismissed (not surprisingly, but a girl can try!).