When kindergartners in the San Mateo-Foster City School District return to class in August, their math lessons will start with paper and pencil, not a Chromebook screen.
The district's Board of Trustees adopted a yearlong pilot "print-first" math curriculum for grades K-5 in March, eliminating 30 minutes of mandatory daily Chromebook use that the previous program required. For English Language Arts in TK through second grade, teachers will deliver reading instruction entirely without screens in 2026-27, except for online assessments that require advance parent notification.
The curriculum shift comes as more than 550 parents across the majority of the district's 21 elementary campuses signed a petition demanding administrators remove devices from early classrooms, restrict YouTube access, and set screen time limits by grade level, the San Mateo Daily Journal reported Friday, July 31.
Suki Reddy, the parent who organized the petition after first raising concerns to the board in March, said she worries the district's response still isn't fast enough.
"It can sound great to have a task force, or stakeholder process, which is great and needed, so you don't make quick decisions," Reddy told the Daily Journal. "But it is also delaying something that requires urgency. The previous decisions didn't come from stakeholder processes. We didn't all say 'yes, kids can play video games during idle time or scroll YouTube.' We didn't collectively weigh in on that."
Task force launches in August
The district will establish a Technology Task Force in August to investigate current classroom practices, examine research, gather stakeholder input, and develop recommendations on device use by grade level, according to Diego Perez, the district's director of communications.
Perez said the district will be "minimizing student technology use in a very noticeable and significant way" through the new math curriculum and a move from giving every student their own Chromebook to shared Chromebook carts on campuses.
Still, parents say enforcement gaps remain. At the June board meeting, parent Jagriti Hooda described witnessing students at her child's middle school "absorbed in school-issued laptops, gaming, entertainment, YouTube unrestricted" during advisory periods, lunch breaks, and recesses. Hooda added that her son knew of a URL workaround to access blocked websites on district laptops, something he said "every kid in the district" knew how to do.
Board members acknowledge the contradiction
Trustees Alison Proctor and Gene Kim both pushed for faster action at the June meeting. Proctor noted that Chromebook misuse undercuts the purpose of the Yondr pouches the district uses to lock away students' personal phones at middle schools.
Kim said he appreciates that the district values community engagement before making decisions, but added that "parents aren't going to be OK with an eight-month process to prevent students playing video games during lunch."
The San Mateo-Foster City School District serves roughly 10,500 students in preschool through eighth grade across 21 schools. The local push mirrors a statewide trend: the Los Angeles Unified School District on June 24 approved a policy banning screens entirely through first grade and capping device use at 60 minutes per day for grades 2-5.
The Technology Task Force's first meeting date and timeline for delivering recommendations have not been announced. The 2026-27 school year, when the pilot print-first math and screen-free TK-2 reading programs take effect, begins in August.
