The myths

"Kids have screens everywhere anyway."

We do not think kids being on screens all the time is developmentally healthy, and we would like to think our schools feel the same. Whether a child has a device at home is also a different question from whether the school's take-home model is sound. One is about what happens in living rooms; the other is about a program the district designed and runs.

"Parents just need to monitor use at home."

It's difficult to monitor our kids at home. We don't want to hover, and limiting the Chromebook at home often becomes a battle. The district chose to send an internet device home with every child by default. Reframing that as a parenting problem does not address the program itself. The safeguards the district wrote all assume the device is at school: a teacher present when students are online, filtering on district computers, and a rule that Chromebooks are not permitted in the cafeteria or during recess. The district decided a Chromebook was too much for a supervised lunch period, then sent the same device home for the whole evening. Further, a parent or guardian may not even be home after school, since many are at work or attending to other obligations.

"1:1 devices prepare them for the workforce and the future."

Future-readiness does not require an addictive, take-home device for every child every night, or open access to generative AI. Intentional, supervised use at school does that job. The question is not whether students ever use technology; it is how much, when, and with what guardrails.

"It's about equity, leveling the playing field."

The equity argument actually points toward standardizing devices at school, ideally in a computer lab, not sending one home with every child. And in New Paltz, Census figures show only about 4 percent of households lack a home computer or an internet subscription, so the home-access version of the equity case is weak here. We want every child to be able to have screen-free time at home, creating, reading, practicing an instrument, spending time with family or friends, or just being bored. Some kids have devices at home, but the district's default should be what is good for kids and families, not what is harmful.

"The acceptable-use policy covers all of this."

The district concedes a family is "not required to sign the acceptable use policy," and no board policy actually requires or governs a mandatory take-home program. Take-home is a practice, not a policy.