A committee of the Lexington-Richland 5 school board is looking at whether the district should change the way it uses school-issued Chromebooks for students to complete school assignments at home, especially for younger children whose parents have expressed concern about their screen time.
“We’re hearing from parents who have a lot of questions and concerns about how are they being used,” board member Catherine Huddle, who is chairing the committee, told The State. “The biggest thing I hear now is [students] spending too much time on them at the house, doing homework and projects. The other thing is they don’t necessarily feel like it’s that helpful.”
The committee met for the first time Tuesday. Huddle said she doesn’t have a particular policy change in mind for the school district, but wanted parents to have a venue to raise concerns and learn more about district policy on the use of digital devices.
Currently, it’s common for students at all grade levels to complete assignments on their school-assigned device, which not only make it easier for teachers to see and grade a student’s work but also allows students a way to complete lessons when bad weather closes schools.
“We first adopted Chromebooks in 2013 or 2014, so it’s been a long time. I don’t think they’re being used the same way,” Huddle said. “They started being used a lot during COVID. I don’t know that we used them as much before.”
Parents have expressed concerns about the district’s use of Chromebooks and the effects they could have on younger students. In October, the Lexington-Richland 5 school board even reviewed a parent’s challenge that asked to remove access to the devices entirely.
The board didn’t go that far, but the challenge did result in some changes at the time. The school district administration announced that AI platforms other than the Magic School template would be restricted, and that parents would be able to opt out of their children bringing Chromebooks home from school. An effort to block elementary-aged children from bringing their Chromebooks home at all was dropped after teachers pushed back, citing the need to be able to share some lessons digitally with students who lacked home Internet access.
Committee member Kevin Scully said the district already gives parents the flexibility to manage their child’s Internet use without cutting out modern technology, and he doesn’t want the school board to limit how teachers’ decide the best way to utilize Chromebooks for their classroom.
“The current policy gives the parent the flexibility to alleviate their concerns,” Scully told The State. “Parents have voiced concerns about their child having a Chromebook and having access search controversial subject matter, and we’ve given the parent the right to opt out of using the Chromebook so we can do away with that concern.”
Any further restrictions, he said, would leave Lexington-Richland 5 students at a “disadvantage” compared to their peers in other school districts.
At Tuesday’s committee meeting, board members were told that the average amount of time students use their Chromebooks in school is under an hour in grades lower than high school-level, and around 22 minutes a day for elementary school students.
District chief academic officer Tina McCaskill said parents can check how their kids might be using their device by checking the “backpack” icon on the device to show the exact usage of the Chromebook.
Huddle didn’t set a future meeting date for the committee on Tuesday, but she later told The State she hopes to wrap up the committee’s work before the start of the next school year.
©2026 The State. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
