TPES’ public comments regarding in-school screen time

Before our first PTA meeting of the year, many questions were submitted about screen-time at TPES.

While we ran out of time during the meeting to tackle these questions, the school has responded to these inquiries in this Dolphin Digest.

As a primary school, TPES places an intentional focus on hands-on, multi-sensory learning. We share your commitment to ensuring that digital devices serve as purposeful tools rather than passive distractions. I want to acknowledge that our curriculum does have numerous technology components such as instructional slides and videos that are used along with teacher led instruction and read alouds, or video clips that provide context around concepts being taught; however, we emphasize direct teacher-led instruction, collaborative engagement, and physical learning materials.

Direct device use such as Chromebooks are intended to supplement instruction in very limited windows; such as required diagnostic assessments or short, focused station rotations for skills practice, while the vast majority of core instruction remains paper, book, and teacher-led or through collaborative engagement.

As MCPS conducts its comprehensive technology review in response to the Board of Education’s recent resolution, our leadership team and teachers will continue evaluating classroom technology practices. To maintain equity and effective classroom management, our school utilizes the district mandated curriculum rather than providing individualized default “no-technology” learning tracks for individual students or classes. However, we are actively working with our teachers to ensure daily screen time remains limited and aligned with the developmental needs of our young learners.

If you have further questions or didn’t feel like your question was answered fully, don’t hesitate to continue the conversation in WhatsApp!

P.S. Psssst… if you’ve read this far, react in WhatsApp with the ‘laptop’ emoji 💻