Thursday, October 1, 2026
Parents and educators are currently navigating a quiet takeover: the steady creep of technology into our children’s lives. What starts with a harmless learning app or a gamified math lesson quickly snowballs until screens dominate every aspect of a child’s day, at school or at home.
Recently we have seen a necessary, intentional pushback against this saturation. Every moment of a child’s learning life does not require a digital solution, and schools are finally confronting the part we play in facilitating the tech takeover, especially in the lives of early learners.
Researchers are beginning to raise the alarm about how the overexposure to technology among young learners can have a negative effect on language and cognitive development. The Department of Health and Human Services has issued warnings about the impact of excessive screen time on children — specifically, risks to their academic performance, physical health and mental well-being. Community concern is driving initiatives across the country to reduce children’s screen time.
In June, the Los Angeles Times reported that L.A. Unified, one of the nation’s largest school districts, issued a sweeping ban on screen time for younger students. Beginning this school year, guidelines prohibit in-school screen time from preschool through first grade, limit second- and third-graders to 20 minutes a day and cap high schoolers at 10 hours a week.
This is the beginning of a nationwide reckoning with the proliferation of tech in our classrooms. But a one-size-fits-all remedy ignores the nuance students need. The goal shouldn’t be a total moratorium, but an evolution toward intentionality — ensuring that classroom time remains anchored in reading, writing, creating and building real-life human connections.
I caution schools not to move too quickly from one extreme to the other, however. A student’s ability to thoughtfully and responsibly utilize technology is a prerequisite for their future. If we eliminate tech entirely, we risk disadvantaging our children in a digital world. The solution lies in developmentally appropriate guardrails, not total exile. Furthermore, establishing boundaries can’t be left to individual teachers; these decisions must be made by collaborative committees of educators and school leaders, to eliminate the risk of overexposure.
This requires a balanced framework. In Uniondale, our Portrait of a Graduate cites “Digitally Literate” as one of the attributes we expect in all of our graduates, because we believe that in order to prepare them for the world of the future, they must be taught how to use technology responsibly, and ultimately be equipped to become the next generators of developers. But this goal must be achieved both strategically and thoughtfully.
We are limiting unnecessary screen exposure for primary grades to ensure that technology never replaces foundational instruction, but rather enhances it, with educators’ guidance. When we focus on age-appropriate tools that promote collaboration, design and creation over passive activities such as scrolling, devices become active learning tools. Crucially, keeping K–2 devices in the classroom rather than sending them home helps reinforce the limits on early exposure to digital devices.
It’s important to note that not all tech learning is created equal. The distinction between passive consumption and active application is the thin line between digital harm and educational benefit. As the organization Avid Open Access points out: “If the technology ends up doing the required thinking for the students, that’s a problem. However, if the technology preserves the thinking included in the lesson’s learning target and adds enhancements or lifts students to higher levels of thinking, then tech integration becomes a winning formula.”
We are not issuing a moratorium on technology in our classrooms. We are fostering learning environments in which imagination, speech and literacy are developed in healthy ways. As educators, our responsibility is to protect the critical speech and social development of our youngest learners while simultaneously harnessing the immense possibilities technology offers.
Teaching students to move past passive consumption toward active, intentional application of technology is key. By setting strict data privacy safeguards, providing learning opportunities for staff and embedding strong digital citizenship instruction into curriculum, we can ensure that our students are prepared for the future of work. We don’t need to banish the future; we just need to build the guardrails that allow students to safely thrive in it.
Monique Darrisaw-Akil is superintendent of the Uniondale school district.
