A growing number of school districts in Pennsylvania and North Carolina are reversing a decade-long push to put personal devices in every student's hands. Canon-McMillan School District, near Pittsburgh, will eliminate student Chromebooks for kindergarten through second grade starting in the 2026-27 school year, according to a district document. Lower Merion School District, in Philadelphia's suburbs, is advancing a policy that would end personal iPads and laptops for the same grades. In North Carolina, Granville County Public Schools is removing devices from K-2 classrooms, and Burke County Public Schools unanimously passed a resolution in June 2025 prioritizing pen-and-paper instruction. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction issued statewide guidance in summer 2026 that endorses structured, developmentally appropriate screen use but declines to set time limits.
District-level reversals
Canon-McMillan's shift, effective in the coming school year, applies to grades K-2. For grades 3-6, technology will be used only for specific purposes such as typing an essay after handwriting it, and drill programs like IXL and Reflex Math will be dropped. The district is buying printed textbooks and workbooks. Superintendent Greg Taranto told Education Week the decision was driven by research, not parent pressure, saying children learn best with paper rather than a scrolling screen. The district has about 5,400 students.
Lower Merion's proposed policy states that technology shall not be used for routine classroom instruction in K-2, allowing only minimal use for diagnostic testing, teacher-led demonstrations, or state testing practice. Grades 3-4 would have supervised access to devices stored on classroom carts, while grades 5-6 could bring devices home but not use them between classes or at lunch. The district aims to have the policy in place by August 2026. More than 800 parents signed a petition organized by a group called Pencils Over Pixels asking for the right to opt out of one-to-one devices.
Granville County, North Carolina, is in its second year of holding tech-free days two days per week. The district is removing devices from K-2 classrooms, keeping Chromebooks on carts for grades 3-5, and ending take-home devices for middle school. High schoolers retain their Chromebooks, but YouTube is blocked. The district saved 435,000 dollars by cutting tech contracts and plans to spend the money on new math and reading curricula. The district's IT director calculated that distracted screen time was costing students the equivalent of 31 instructional days per year.
Burke County's resolution, titled Encouraging balanced instruction through reduced screen use, states that pen-and-paper instruction should be the primary mode of learning, particularly for note-taking, reading comprehension, writing, and assessments. It is a guideline, not a mandate. After the first year, the district reported a 17 percent reduction in screen time for K-5 students and a 13 percent reduction for grades 6-8, as well as a 26.2 percent drop in office referrals for technology misuse.
State guidance as mediator
North Carolina's Department of Public Instruction released Guidance for Purposeful Screen Use in Schools in summer 2026. The document does not set specific time limits. Instead, it recommends a gradual release of responsibility: adult-guided use in elementary school, shared responsibility in middle school, and student-managed use with accountability in high school. It distinguishes active screen use, such as creating or problem-solving, from passive consumption like endless scrolling, and discourages using screens as rewards or fillers.
The guidance explicitly cautions against overly restrictive policies that remove opportunities to practice responsible use, according to the Carolina Journal. This positions the state as a mediator between districts pushing aggressive reduction and those favoring continued device use. Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools approved a three-year digital learning plan in spring 2026 that phases out devices for kindergarten and first grade, adds YouTube restrictions, and requires teachers to monitor device use with GoGuardian.
Evidence cited, results mixed
North Carolina's state guidance cites research linking unstructured recreational screen time to sleep disruption, reduced attention, and mental health concerns, drawing on a 2019 study by Adelantado-Renau and colleagues as well as reports from the CDC and the American Psychological Association. It also references the American Academy of Pediatrics' position that eliminating screens entirely is not recommended, since digital tools can support learning when used intentionally.
Burke County's internal evaluation found perceived improvements in student engagement, handwriting, reading comprehension, and social skills from teacher and parent surveys, but the data are survey-based and not from a peer-reviewed study. Challenges included inconsistent implementation across classrooms.
Granville County partnered with Karl Johnson, an assistant professor at UNC-Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health, to evaluate its tech-free days. Preliminary survey data showed middle school teachers reported students were less distracted on tech-free days and more likely to interact with peers. But students reported differently: most did not think tech-free days improved their focus, reduced their stress, or helped them feel calm.
Krista Glazewski, executive director of NC State's Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, described the state guidance as taking a measured approach to technology in schools rather than endorsing or rejecting it outright.