As parents and community members, we are increasingly concerned about the growing role of screens in our children’s school day — especially without clear guardrails for younger students.

Across the country, school districts are beginning to adopt stronger guardrails around classroom screen use in response to growing parent, teacher, and research-based concern. Los Angeles Unified School district has adopted a resolution aimed at setting hard grade-level limits, blocking YouTube and gaming platforms on school devices, eliminating devices for the youngest students, and requiring weekly screen reports to parents.
Claremont Unified School District (CUSD) can join this nation-wide movement and create meaningful change by adopting thoughtful, developmentally appropriate screen use guardrails now.

Petition Details:
Dear Superintendent Dr. James Elsasser, Board Members Dr. Alex McDonald, Kathy Archer, Cheryl Fiello, Kathryn Dunn, and Richard W. O’Neill. 

We, the parents and community members of Claremont, respectfully urge Claremont Unified School District to adopt, at a minimum, the same district-wide screen use policy as Los Angeles Unified School District’s Schools-Beyond-Screens Reform Proposals and Model Tech Policy.
We believe technology should support learning — not replace human connection, creativity, movement, conversation, handwriting, play, reading, and critical thinking.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and many researchers have raised concerns about excessive screen time and its impact on attention, mental health, sleep, social development, and learning. Many CUSD teachers and parents have respectfully raised these concerns for years. While these concerns have often been acknowledged, meaningful district-wide action has remained limited.

We respectfully ASK CUSD to:

1. Eliminate all device use for TK – 1st grade. Children at this stage of development need hands-on, in-person learning experiences.
2. Eliminate 1:1 device use for 3 - 8, limited device use with computer cart or lab model as is deemed curriculum appropriate.
3. Encourage paper, physical textbooks, and off-screen homework. 
4. Block student access to YouTube, as well as all gaming, video-streaming and social media on student devices.
5. Require all apps used for instruction or on school issued devices to be ad-free.
6. Disable student access to any generative AI tools, apps, websites, and software on all school-issued devices until this technology has been proven safe, legal, and effective, and until age-appropriate guidelines are established.
7. Prohibit all student device use during passing periods, lunch, and recess.
8. Require explicit parental consent for each app that collects data, per FTC guidelines on COPPA.
9. Transparency in technology use in schools both on devices and in teacher led instruction.
10. Create clear pathways for parents and students who wish to opt out of device-based instruction, without penalty or reprisal, providing low-tech alternatives.
11. Require all EdTech products to meet independent standards for efficacy, and to prove that any benefits outweigh potential risks.
12. Prohibit screen time from being used as a reward, incentive, behavioral reinforcement or management tool for students.

We also ASK that the District Technology Leadership Team (DTLT): 

Become a Public advisory group that includes parents, caregivers, teachers, and community members, with publicly available agendas and meeting minutes.  Technology decisions affecting thousands of students should include meaningful public input and transparency.

The public consensus is growing. LAUSD has shown it can be done. We respectfully urge Claremont Unified School District to ACT NOW to protect the health, development, and academic success of our children.

Sincerely, 

The undersigned