A Madison parent group that has grown to roughly 200 members in just a few months is pushing the Madison Metropolitan School District to pull back sharply on classroom screens, arguing that Chromebooks and other devices should disappear entirely from kindergarten through second grade and stay out of daily use until high school. Parent Check on Tech formed in May 2026 and has since built a case around district data showing students spend far more time staring at screens than officials say they should.
The group's argument leans heavily on an MMSD report presented to the district's Board of Education in April 2026, as detailed by Urban Milwaukee. That report found kindergarten and first-grade students should have no screen time at all, yet middle schoolers were logging about two hours a day against a recommended cap of 40 minutes, and high schoolers were hitting roughly 90 minutes daily versus a 40-minute target. Kindergarten and first-grade students, meanwhile, were still recording nine to 15 minutes of screen time daily despite the zero-minute guideline. MMSD senior leaders reported that actual student screen time across the district exceeds what the technology plan recommends, according to the same report.
What the Parent Group Wants
Parent Check on Tech co-founder Jacqui Shore, a Madison mom and middle school librarian, said the group is concerned about technology use and finding a healthy balance for kids. Per the Urban Milwaukee report, Shore said rethinking technology spending and student screen time in schools could help address the imbalance, though she was careful to note that removing screens will not solve every problem on its own. The group advocates for pencil, paper and physical books as the default for students, device-free classrooms through second grade, and Chromebook carts or shared computer labs for grades three through eight rather than personal devices for every child.
Co-founder Amy Martino, who is working on a petition aimed at the district, said the group favors delaying one-to-one Chromebook assignments until high school altogether. The coalition opposes the default use of Chromebooks and other technology in daily instruction, arguing that the current setup lets devices dominate the school day rather than support it. That framing echoes language from MMSD's own April report, which stated that technology should enhance learning rather than dominate or overshadow it.
A District Already Reworking Its Tech Rules
MMSD is not standing still on the issue, even as it pushes back on the idea of eliminating computers altogether. The district agrees students should not spend their entire school day in front of a screen and says it aims to ensure technology is used purposefully, effectively and responsibly, according to spokesperson Edell Fiedler. Fiedler said technology remains important for learning and for preparing students for college and careers, but rejected eliminating computers and technology entirely.
The district's technology plan revision formally began in August 2026, and MMSD expects to present a draft revised plan to the board in April 2027. Ahead of that work, the district also announced a temporary pause on onboarding new third-party software vendors and digital subscriptions while it reviews its instructional technology ecosystem, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. District leaders framed the pause as a way to prioritize clear instructional value, equity, and data privacy. Beginning this school year, MMSD also disabled direct YouTube access on district-issued devices for students in pre-K through eighth grade and restricted social media access on the district guest Wi-Fi network during school hours from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., though high school YouTube settings remained unchanged to avoid disrupting curriculum.
Phone Bans Already in Place, Screens Are the Next Fight
Wisconsin schools are already required to limit student cell phone use under a state law that took effect July 1, 2025, part of a broader statutory push described by the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators. That law, 2025 Wisconsin Act 42, required districts to adopt policies prohibiting personal wireless device use during instructional time, with exemptions for emergencies, health management, individualized education programs, and teacher-authorized uses. Following study recommendations from University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate researchers, MMSD's Board of Education voted in June 2026 to enforce a district-wide ban on wireless devices for K-8 students during the entire school day and to prohibit high school phone use during instructional and passing periods, a shift from the district's prior approach of letting individual principals set their own rules.
National polling suggests that kind of restriction has broad public backing: a Pew Research survey found 74% of U.S. adults support banning cellphone use during class time in middle and high schools, a figure highlighted by Wisconsin lawmakers during debate over Act 42, per the Badger Herald. But for groups like Parent Check on Tech, phone bans were only the opening move. Their focus has shifted to school-issued Chromebooks, educational software contracts, and screen exposure for the youngest students, mirroring a nationwide caregiver concern about school-provided screens that researchers link to developmental delays, decreased attention spans, socialization challenges, and mental health issues. The American Academy of Pediatrics defines screen time broadly as time spent interacting with smartphones, tablets, computers and televisions.
Part of a Wider National Push
Parent Check on Tech operates as a Wisconsin affiliate of Schools Beyond Screens, a national parent coalition founded in Los Angeles in 2025 that now has chapters in more than 30 states, including in Kohler, New Richmond and Sparta, Wisconsin. The national group advocates for student-centered rather than corporate-sponsored classroom technology and insists edtech products demonstrate independently proven educational benefits before landing in classrooms. Madison's roughly 200-member chapter grew out of an initial meeting of about 30 parents, and its campaign closely tracks similar fights playing out elsewhere.
In Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest school district voted unanimously in April 2026 to ban device use for early education through first grade and set daily screen time caps, a resolution that also prohibited student-led YouTube streaming and directed an audit of edtech contracts, as covered in Hoodline's report on the LA school board's screen-time vote. Baltimore City Public Schools eliminated 1:1 personal devices for PreK through second grade and capped daily classroom technology bursts at 15 to 20 minutes for the current school year, rules that Baltimore County parent groups later cited in their own push for laptop cutbacks. California's San Mateo-Foster City School District shifted away from an always-on 1:1 Chromebook model this year, moving early reading and math instruction to print-first materials and shared laptop carts after parents petitioned over students playing online games during advisory and lunch periods. And in suburban Philadelphia, Lower Merion School District parents launched a Pencils Over Pixels campaign gathering hundreds of signatures demanding formal opt-outs from district-issued Chromebook and MacBook assignments, though officials there countered that modern curricula rely heavily on digital delivery.
That tension, between parents pushing for a pencil-and-paper default and district leaders who see digital tools as essential to preparing students for college and careers, runs through nearly every version of this fight nationwide. In Madison, it now centers on what MMSD's revised technology plan will look like when it reaches the school board next spring, and on whether the district's own data showing screen time far above its own guidelines will factor into that rewrite.
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