Overview:
The Washoe Parents Coalition says screen time has become nearly impossible for families to avoid, even for parents trying to delay smartphones and reduce device use at home. Part II looks at what educational technology — or EdTech — is, how it’s being used in the classroom, and why parents are asking for lawmakers to dial it back.
In Part I, we were introduced to the Washoe Parents Coalition, a grassroots organization made of parents asking for change not only in their own children’s schools, but in classrooms across Nevada.
The first part of our dive looked at the coalition’s calls to protect recess and prioritize play for elementary students statewide.
Recently, the group announced it is introducing a bill during the 84th legislative session called “Say YES to RECESS,” aiming to pass a state law that ensures all Nevada children receive adequate, legally protected play time during the school day.
But parents say the push for recess is now part of a larger argument over what childhood is supposed to look like inside public schools.
Two local moms, Brandi Vesco, a former education and technology reporter, and Larissa Viner, a registered school nurse, initiated the Wait Until 8th chapter in Northern Nevada earlier this year. The national campaign asks parents to hold off providing smartphones to their children until the end of eighth grade in an effort to protect their brain development and mental health.
Once the advocacy began, it began expanding; first, into advocating for stricter enforcement around recess and physical play during at school. But as parents began organizing around recess, they say a more concerning issue appeared alongside the reduction in physical activity: the increased time students now spend sitting on screens.
That realization has driven the coalition to embrace the “Schools Beyond Screens” initiative, which aims to roll back the 1:1 device model in classrooms and block student access to generative artificial intelligence tools until the technology is proven to be safe, legal and effective.
Now, they are asking lawmakers for a number of reforms to protect student wellness. In addition to recess and physical play, these include limiting the amount of time students are required to spend on screens, and instituting stricter guidelines when it comes to purchasing new EdTech.
What exactly is EdTech?
Educational Technology, or EdTech, is the term used for computer software systems and hardware devices used for educational purposes both in and out of the classroom.
This ranges from 1:1 device models — where every student is issued a laptop or tablet — to online lesson and assessment platforms such as i-Ready, digital note-taking apps, and increasingly, generative artificial intelligence tools designed to assist with writing, reading comprehension, lesson planning and other classroom tasks.
“We can’t afford to spend our limited education funds on anything not proven to help students learn.”
However, the coalition found that for many students, EdTech isn’t being used as a tool, but as an educator itself — and they argue it is falling short.
Vesco said to her and other parents in the coalition, the pivot toward screen-based learning is alarming given there isn’t enough independent data proving it is effective.
“We can’t afford to spend our limited education funds on anything not proven to help students learn,” she said.
She said their concern is not whether students should learn how to use technology. Their concern is that devices and digital platforms have moved from occasional tools to the default delivery system for instruction, testing, homework, writing practice and student intervention.
Carson City reports positive academic gains through EdTech programs
In contradiction to the coalition’s concerns, some districts are reporting already seeing positive associations with EdTech programs.
According to recent discussions held by the Carson City School Board, schools rely on these platforms to fulfill standardized testing requirements, track student performance metrics and automate grading. Recently, some districts have also adopted AI tools to help teachers save time on administrative tasks, lesson planning and differentiating instruction for various learning levels.
“A key paradigm we have here in Carson City School District is that our curriculum comes first,” Chief Academic Officer Brandon Bringhurst said. “AI is a tool that comes second. Our foundation is grounded in the curriculum that we have worked very hard to develop and [we] adopt resources that align with what our students need to know.”
Bringhurst said the district leverages AI not only to help with student learning, but to help teachers focus on providing it.
“[We use AI programs] to focus on how we can gain real efficiency in the work that our teachers are doing,” he said. “The more time we can save teachers on the administrative paperwork tasks, the more time and energy they have for … the real magic in working with our students directly.”
District officials and EdTech proponents argue that, when used properly, digital tools can provide immediate feedback, identify gaps in student understanding and offer targeted interventions that a single teacher may not always be able to provide in a classroom of 30 students.
At Bordewich Bray Elementary School, a pilot of the AI writing tool WriteOn, yielded “incredible results,” according to English Learner teacher Kaylee Davenport.
“It gives them feedback immediately … sentence by sentence,” she told the board. “It’s taken their learning and their writing process just to wonderful heights.”
However, while these programs may be helping some students — especially those in special populations like English Learners or students with neurodivergence, Vesco says that current research does not support that for the average student EdTech is helping.
On the contrary, she says too much screen time — educational or not — is being shown to actively harm all students, but especially those in elementary school.
What the research says about screens and learning
The concern, parents say, is not only academic — it’s developmental.
A number of research studies have been published in the last few years relating to student learning outcomes on screens versus traditional methods like textbooks or paper hand outs.
A 2019 study found a negative connection between tablet use in school and fourth-grade reading scores. A more recent Columbia University neuroscience study found that reading text from a screen resulted in “shallower processing,” while reading from a physical book or paper handout resulted in students building “richer cognitive networks” with deeper comprehension and recall about the information.
Screen viewing takes away from the real-world, hands-on learning interactions required to develop early memory.
The timing of screen exposure is also a focus for researchers. A longitudinal study monitoring children over a decade found that high screen viewing around age six disrupted brain development, resulting in lower working memory capacity by age 10.5.
Researchers attributed this to the “displacement effect,” meaning that no matter what a student is viewing on a screen, simply the activity of screen viewing takes away from the real-world, hands-on learning interactions required to develop early memory.
For parents in the coalition, that is the crux of the issue. Even if some educational platforms can show benefits in specific contexts, parents argue school districts have moved too quickly toward widespread screen-based learning without proving that the overall tradeoff is worth it.
But for parents who want less screen time, they say opting out is proving to be far more complicated than simply asking for paper.
When opting out means opting out of access
When Vesco was told her WCSD third-grader was spending about 30 minutes per subject each week on the i-Ready platform, she requested her child’s usage data to verify it. After “jumping through hoops” to receive the information, which included having to navigating a third-party software service to access the records, Vesco said she discovered her daughter actually spent up to 80 minutes a week just on the reading portion of the program.
Vesco said while Washoe County School District is mandated by the state to assess K-3 readers, the district could simply purchase the i-Ready assessment tool for $8 per student. Instead, she said, the district opted to buy the full lesson packages, bumping the cost to $30 per student for each subject.
While EdTech contracts like i-Ready include an opt-out from student data collection, internal contracts such as the one between i-Ready and WCSD reveal that doing so can cause students to be unable to access the program at all.
And because school districts have chosen to use specific software platforms to fulfill state-mandated K-3 reading screeners, students can be left without an obvious alternative testing option, effectively requiring them to participate in the platform’s ecosystem to remain compliant with state assessments.
For parents who want less screen time, they say opting out is proving to be far more complicated than simply asking for paper.
Parents say there is also no easily accessible way to request an opt-out, or even to understand the data being collected, despite i-Ready contract language stating parents can request a copy of the collected data at any point. One Washoe parent reported they have been asking to see the data being collected on their student by i-Ready for several months but have still not been provided with it.
For parents who want to go screen-free, requesting paper homework or textbooks has also proven challenging across districts.
A recent acquisition of math curriculum at the middle school level in WCSD included a physical workbook provided to students, but no physical textbook exists as part of the curriculum, even for families to purchase separately. That means to engage with the curriculum, students must engage with the application, leaving no clear alternative for families who want to opt out.
Carson City families who have asked for their students to be opted-out from Chromebook usage said the process isn’t cut and dry. Many of the families who have reported making the request over the past few years said they did so because their student was abusing the device and accessing other websites or apps instead of completing work.
However, responses have varied across school sites. Some families were provided with paper homework or handouts, and saw an increase in focus and their students grades increase, while other families reportedly were told there is no alternative as classwork is done through the classroom software systems.
This is one of the issues the parent coalition hopes to address by advocating for consistent statewide legislation.
Parents involved in the coalition say the current system places the burden on individual families to negotiate with individual teachers, principals and districts, even when the concern is statewide.
They argue that if a district requires a student to use a device, a digital curriculum, an AI writing tool or a third-party instructional platform, parents should be told exactly what is being used, how much time their child is expected to spend on it, what data is being collected and what non-digital alternative is available.
A push to roll back the 1:1 device model
The coalition is not arguing that every computer should be removed from every classroom. Instead, parents are asking districts to move away from the 1:1 device model for younger students and return to a limited-use model, such as shared computer carts or labs, where devices are used only when they clearly support a specific instructional purpose relating to computers such as typing or coding.
The group is calling for all device use to be eliminated for Pre-K through second-grade students, and for the 1:1 device model to be rolled back for third through eighth grades.
If a district requires a student to use (EdTech), parents should be told exactly what is being used, how much time their child is expected to spend on it, what data is being collected and what non-digital alternative is available.
The coalition is also asking schools to block student access to YouTube, video-streaming, gaming and social media on student devices, prohibit device use during passing periods, lunch and recess at all schools statewide, and stop using screen time as an incentive, reward or behavioral reinforcement.
Parents are also pushing for all instructional apps or apps installed on school-issued devices to be completely ad-free.
When it comes to generative AI, the group is asking districts to place an immediate moratorium on the technology in schools, disabling access on all school-issued devices until the tools are proven safe, legal and effective.
Washoe trustees to discuss tech audit, i-Ready review
That debate is expected to come to a head during the Washoe County School Board’s July 28 meeting.
The Washoe Parent Coalition is mobilizing its members to provide public comment on two agenda items that directly impact student technology use and daily schedules.
First, trustees will vote on whether to approve the WCSD Safe and Healthy Schools Commission’s goals for the 2026-2027 school year, which include conducting a district-wide technology audit and a review of student screen time.
The coalition is urging the board to approve the goal and ensure the audit process includes outside stakeholder input and oversight.
In tandem with the tech audit, the parent group is demanding the board establish clear directives for its upcoming evaluation of the i-Ready platform.
When the board voted to renew the $2 million contract on May 12, it included a caveat that the district would analyze the program’s efficacy, but the coalition noted that no specific parameters for that analysis were established.
Parents say that without clear parameters, the district risks conducting a review that does not answer the questions families are actually asking: how much time students are spending on the platform, whether the program is improving reading and math outcomes, whether the evidence supporting it is independent, and whether students can access legally required assessments without being routed through a full digital lesson package.
The second agenda item involves a discussion on how the district allocates instructional minutes.
While Nevada law sets broad instructional requirements, it does not dictate exactly how students spend each portion of the school day. The coalition is using the discussion to again demand at least 45 minutes of daily recess and to prohibit schools from withholding that time for academic or disciplinary reasons.
But the group is also pushing for dedicated instructional minutes and funding for physical education and art in elementary schools. The coalition suggested the district could fund these programs by reallocating money currently spent on non-evidence-based educational technology.
For the Washoe Parents Coalition, the question is no longer only whether children should be allowed to play. It is whether school districts should be required to prove that screen-based instruction is helping children before making it unavoidable.
Check back for Part III where we look at the costs of EdTech, and if families — or even districts themselves — are able to tell if these investments are resulting in an increase in student academic achievement.
