When Croton-on-Hudson鈥檚 youngest students returned to school earlier this month, a familiar 鈥� and increasingly controversial 鈥� classroom tool was missing from their desks: iPads.

A new districtwide policy prohibits the devices in kindergarten through second grade with few exceptions. Instead, teachers are emphasizing traditional, hands-on learning through activities like games, puzzles, and pen-and-paper assignments.

The screen-free classrooms arrived after a grassroots effort from local parents in Croton-on-Hudson, an affluent, highly educated suburban village on the Hudson River,听40 miles north of Manhattan.

Formed in July 2025, the Croton Community Collective has amassed more than聽400 local members, built a network of parents who鈥檝e tried to give their children a screen-free childhood, reshaped the school board, and secured several changes limiting the use of educational technology in instruction

It鈥檚 part of a larger push by the community, where many parents have pledged to delay giving their children smart phones. Volunteers have stocked scores of local businesses with boxes of books and magazines, so that kids have a screen-free way to pass the time while waiting for a haircut or sitting at a diner. And over聽100 families have installed landlines in their homes to help children stay connected sans cell phones.

鈥淲e want Croton to be famous for being a town that brought back childhood, at home and at school,鈥� said local parent聽Jill Anderson, who founded the coalition. 鈥淲e want people to move here for their kids to have a different life, like the way it used to be.鈥�

Ed tech has become a fixture in classrooms nationwide in the past decade. Today, most US children spend at least part of their school day on a laptop or tablet. Advocates say the shift in instruction is key to preparing students for聽, while critics say it sets students back, citing research that has linked excessive screen time to聽,听, and聽.

A growing number of parents and teachers are mobilizing to put the brakes on the trend.

Danny Zeliger, a local parent who teaches high school English in another district, is one of them. A decade ago, when he was instructed to have his students use an online grammar and writing program, he remembers looking out at a classroom full of students absorbed in their screens and thinking, 鈥溾��

So Zeliger does not allow his own young children to use iPads. But at a parent orientation for his daughter鈥檚 school just聽over a year ago, he learned that teachers regularly provided them to students in the classroom.

鈥淵ou can imagine how hard it is to not give your kid an iPad at home, and then the first one they receive is from their kindergarten teacher,鈥� he said.

As a member of the Croton Community Collective, Zeliger said he鈥檚 excited by the district鈥檚 new guidelines.

In addition to the early elementary school changes, students in grades聽3 and 4聽now share iPads from classroom carts rather than keeping individual devices at their desks. Fifth graders are no longer allowed to bring their iPads home at the end of the school day, and sixth graders can鈥檛 take them home on weekends. Teachers have stopped using online read-alouds, letting students watch videos during snack and movement breaks, or offering technology as a reward for students who finish work early.

And at the high school level, teachers are also instructed to limit the use of devices and avoid relying on video-based lessons.

More districts could follow in Croton鈥檚 footsteps soon. A bill filed聽by Sen. Andrew Gounardes last month would sharply limit screen use in schools and 鈥�.鈥� New York City Public Schools has taken its own approach, announcing a one-year moratorium on student-facing generative AI and caps on screen time through middle school.

Croton Superintendent Stephen Walker said the聽1,500-student district鈥檚 new approach is to ensure technology 鈥渆arns its way into a classroom rather than becoming a default resource within each student鈥檚 experience.鈥�

But it took Croton time to get there.

For more than a year, ed tech and screen time have been a recurring source of discussion 鈥� and at times, tension 鈥� at Croton school board meetings, as parents questioned how children were using devices in the classroom.

At a聽June 2025 meeting, for example,听Don Laird told board members that he鈥檇 made the 鈥渉eartbreaking鈥� decision to withdraw his children from the district due largely to concerns over screen time. For several years, the district had provided all of its elementary and middle school students with iPads. Laird said his kindergartener would come home describing advertisements he had seen on classroom screens, his teacher showing a video of someone reading a book instead of reading it aloud, and students watching videos during snack time.

鈥淭hese aren鈥檛 isolated incidents,鈥� Laird told board members at the time. 鈥淭hey paint a picture of a classroom where technology is being used to subdue and distract students rather than engage and develop them.鈥�

Six months later, in December,听Claire Benoist told the school board that her 5-year-old daughter was watching videos on YouTube and online learning platforms in kindergarten throughout each school day. 鈥淲e feel that we are feeding our kids brainrot, and it is being disguised as ed tech,鈥� she said.

The group started making concerted efforts to get the district to implement three of its priorities: enforcing the state鈥檚 cell phone ban throughout the entire school day, including during passing periods and lunch; keeping young children off iPads; and ensuring school-issued devices are not being sent home after school.

Parents zeroed in on the聽May 2026 school board election as a way to make sure they were taken seriously. In聽April, the Croton Community Collective held a packed forum asking board hopefuls to discuss their views on ed tech. While the group did not directly endorse any candidates,听two of its members ran on platforms that prioritized reducing screen time in schools and both went on to defeat incumbent candidates, including one who had been on the board since聽1998.

Around the same time, the push to rein in ed tech was gaining momentum both nationally and across New York: The American Federation of Teachers, a national labor union, unveiled its 鈥溾�� policy framework, and the New York State United Teachers union issued a statement advocating for strict, developmentally appropriate limits on tech use.

By the time the board election approached, the Croton-Harmon school district had already started reexamining its technology usage, Walker told New York Focus. In March,听 reducing its spending on ed tech software by聽nearly 33 percent and stopped sending devices home with K-5 students. According to聽, average daily screen use from January through April began to decline over the previous year.

In June, the district held a teacher summit to discuss ed tech in the classroom, and shortly after, it told teachers it would adopt new guidelines for screen use, step up enforcement of the phone ban, and prioritize pen-and-paper instruction.

Walker said he鈥檚 heard from more parents concerned about screens than on any other issue over the course of his career.

鈥淭his was one of those times when we were able to say, 鈥楾here鈥檚 a movement here, and there鈥檚 an impetus to ask some really challenging questions about our system,鈥欌�� he said.

The district allocated around聽$40,000 to replace digital tools with high-quality, analog resources including manipulative math games, new class sets of books, workbooks, dictionaries, and puzzles. The hope is that the district will save some money in the long term by canceling its subscriptions to online learning programs and no longer having to keep up with a 1-1 device program.

So far, it鈥檚 been an adjustment for some local teachers.

Losing access to digital learning resources feels 鈥渓ike the rug was pulled out underneath us,鈥� said聽Tara Carlucci, who has been teaching kindergarten in the district for two decades.

Last school year, she said her students used iPads at learning stations to practice handwriting and learn to count. But while she believes that most teachers used technology responsibly, she understands why the changes were necessary to address educators who have become overly reliant on it.

Kindergarten teacher聽Dana Buckhout echoed the sentiment, noting that she is still trying to figure out how to differentiate instruction for struggling students who used the iPad as a tool. But since the school year started a couple weeks ago, she said she鈥檚 really not feeling the loss of devices.

鈥淚t feels so troubling when you are just one person trying to reduce technology, or even if it鈥檚 just one grade level or school,鈥� she said. But acting collectively creates more impact, she said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e all fighting for the same thing, because obviously there needs to be a shift.鈥�

This story originally appeared in , a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. .

Lindy Hockenbary is the author of and an instructional technologist who helps educators and schools learn how to better use technology. A large part of Hockenbary鈥檚 work is finding new ways for students to feel connected to their teachers so that can occur.

One strategy Hockenbary encourages is instructor-created videos.

A 2014 found that instructor-generated video content improved overall student engagement and satisfaction in higher-ed online courses. Both the number and depth of responses for student discussions increased when teachers incorporated videos they created themselves. 

Jennifer Levanduski, head of marketing for , an ed tech company for digital learning, says that as society and culture change, so does education. As TikTok has popularized shorter, less formal videos, Levanduski and Hockenbary encourage teachers to follow suit. They believe that while more professional videos from platforms like Khan Academy are beneficial for students, more casual and personal videos from teachers can create a deeper sense of connection. Hockenbary cites that found students feel a greater bond with their teacher when teachers incorporate videos they created themselves than in classes where instructor-produced content wasn鈥檛 used. ClassIn allows teachers to record and edit videos, as well as create virtual worksheets, create polls, take attendance, offer an interactive blackboard, give out quizzes and grade assignments.

鈥淚 think that meeting students where they are has always been super important,鈥� Levanduski says. 鈥淎nd right now, where students are is they’re digesting so much bite-sized video content across platforms. If you can use some of that video content to almost establish a parasocial relationship with your students, that is another way to help you feel connected to them.鈥�

Hockenbary says teachers can create videos for a variety of purposes, including introducing themselves to their class at the start of the year, explaining lessons, going over the syllabus and providing one-on-one feedback to students. She says she encourages teachers not to worry if they stumble over their words a bit while they are recording, because when they are lecturing face-to-face they wouldn’t restart if they mess up. 

During a ClassIn webinar on Jan. 22 moderated by Levanduski, Hockenbary discussed strategies for increasing student engagement in remote, hybrid and in-person classes. Hockenbary noted that engagement is determined by whether students feel like they belong and will be successful in completing assignments. That鈥檚 why teachers need to foster a sense of personal relationship and community in their classrooms, she notes, whether it鈥檚 face-to-face or virtual.

Though nearly all schools have gone back to in-person instruction, Hockenbary says classroom technology is more relevant than ever. She believes the only way schools are going to increase student engagement is if teachers use a blended format that includes lecturing face-to-face, creating videos or podcasts and using other forms of technology so that learning and engagement can come in multiple forms. 

Another way technology can be useful in boosting students鈥� interests is by letting those who may be less inclined to speak in class due to social anxiety or being naturally introverted to participate. Levanduski says a student may never raise their hand in class but may chat online or contribute in other nonverbal ways. Hockenbary says technology can also enable students to give teachers feedback anonymously.

鈥淓verybody gets to input, versus if you鈥檙e doing that in a lecture environment,鈥� Hockenbary says. 鈥淵ou may only have time to call on one or two students, and it鈥檚 not going to be the ones that are shy.鈥�