CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The start of the school year in West Virginia is just around the corner, and classrooms in several districts are poised to look a bit different.
In the Eastern Panhandle, Jefferson County education workers returned to work Monday, with the first day of school next Monday. Meanwhile, Kanawha County Schools workers head back to work on Tuesday, with the first day of school set for next Wednesday, August 19.
Those two counties are taking a step back from technology this year.
Jefferson County Schools will have “tech-free” days every Monday and Friday, where classrooms revert back to more face-to-face instruction without relying on devices. Kanawha County Schools are also looking to reduce the amount of screen time for its students.
Kanawha County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Paula Potter updated the district’s board of education during its meeting earlier this month about the proposed changes. She said the district began extensive training for teachers on how to implement iPads and MacBooks before COVID-19. Then, in March 2020, Potter noted that education drastically changed.
“Overnight, basically, we expected teachers to move their teaching to Learning Management System (LMS) and user platform,” Potter said. “We just kind of got away from our original training.”
Potter said there’s concern that education has become too reliant on the LMS Schoology and other online platforms. She said the district’s major focus is about using technology with how it should be used.
“Our overarching technology vision is truly just for students to use it when they are creating their original work,” Potter said. “When they are thinking critically or solving problems, demonstrating learning in different ways, collaborating and communicating, access resources and supports, and connect learning to real-world situations.”
While elementary schools don’t deal with technology overuse, Potter said that it’s an issue in middle and high schools. She said it’s gotten to a point where some students could get away with simply doing their work online and there was little need to actually be in the classroom.
Kanawha County Schools want to get back to the place where physically being in the classroom matters, Potter emphasized.
“It’s important that students understand, and their parents, they’re going to need to be in a classroom and completing work and collaborating with other students, being involved in critical thinking, to earn grades,” Potter said. “They can’t just sit at home and do it on Schoology.”
What it all boils down to is reinforcing why attendance matters, she said. While technology can be used for makeup work as needed, Potter said, it can’t continue to be overused. She said that different teachers use different online programs, and thus children are likely on their computer much more than the district is aware of.
“I don’t want anybody to be misinformed,” Potter said. “We don’t think an iPad is bad. We don’t think integrating technology is bad if we do it appropriately.”
The important distinction is not wanting iPads to replace teachers, Potter reported. She said schools should not have technology replace hands-on learning, discussion, or have it serve as a time filler.
Potter said that other platforms such as ALEKS and LEXIA, which are being used in the classroom, will receive reevaluation. She said that teachers in Kanawha County Schools will have a semester to reanalyze their practices and their classroom, then a key switch will come in January 2027.
“I am going to ask teachers to work on this and be done with just using the Schoology platform by January,” Potter said. “I don’t think it’s fair to say, ‘the first week of school, you have to stop’ because some of it is very well done. We do believe good instruction should be face to face.”
Going forward, technology will be used, Potter said, but only when appropriate.
In Jefferson County, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Chuck Bishop reported a positive response on social media to the “tech-free days.” He explained that those days are aimed at restoring what education should be about.
“(To) have those great relationships between teachers and students, and students and students,” Bishop said on MetroNews “Midday” Monday. “Be able to really get back to some of those things that I remember when I was in school 40 years ago now; those important skills that our students need to know.”
He emphasized that it would just be the devices that would be removed from the classroom on those days, not other things.
“A calculator, a microscope, assistive technology, those kinds of things that are tools that are used in the classroom on a regular basis can still be used,” Bishop said. “It’s just that device and that screen time that we want to back away from.”
This follows the legislature-passed cell phone ban in West Virginia school classrooms last year.
Bishop said that the district’s instructional office has been having many conversations about what instruction looks like without computers. He said that one-third of the office was in high school when COVID happened, and another third were teaching during COVID. Bishop said that two-thirds of the office, then, have been in the COVID model for nearly seven years.
He said it’s all about breaking habits now, and the teachers who previously taught traditionally will need to transition back a little to meet the needs of kids. While Jefferson County initially considered Tuesdays and Thursdays would be the best days for the “tech-free” time, Bishop said Mondays and Fridays ended up working out better. That way, he said, schools could string together Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday with technology for projects and assignments.
Jefferson County Schools will try their best to stick to Mondays and Fridays as much as possible for those days, Bishop said.
He said the current trajectory of youth using technology is concerning and something must be done.
“We visit classrooms and we see so much technology use in our classrooms,” Bishop said. “I go to the gas station, I look in the vehicle beside me and I see a younger children on a phone or an iPad or something like that. Students have access to technology nearly 24 hours a day now, including what we do in school.”