The Lebanon Township school district in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, is preparing to introduce a two hour daily limit on screen time for students, a move its leaders describe as the first of its kind in the state. With the first day of classes less than a month away, the K through 8 district plans to pull back on the use of tablets and other devices and lean instead on handwriting and physical texts. Administrators framed the change as a rebalancing of classroom habits rather than an abandonment of technology.
Teachers at Lebanon Township schools say they have watched their students change as classrooms have grown more high tech, pointing in particular to weaker retention and a harder time staying focused. One teacher said a lesson can hold students' attention for only about four minutes before they drift away, no matter how engaging the material is. That kind of daily struggle, staff said, is what pushed the district toward a different approach.
District staff stressed that the policy is meant to change how and when technology is used, not to strip it out of the classroom entirely. The aim, they said, is to reserve devices for creating and for reading while keeping the core instruction led by the teacher. One veteran educator recalled starting a career teaching children the basics of a computer mouse, Microsoft Word and simple games just to get them comfortable with technology, only to conclude that screens have now become too much.
The decision grew out of parent surveys and conversations with outside experts, and it comes as test scores across the state have declined since the COVID pandemic. Out of that review, the district settled on what it called a back to basics approach, built around collaborative learning, hands on projects, more movement and less time spent watching video. Officials described the coming year as a deliberate reset in classroom routine.
The rollout will mean a noticeable reduction in how often devices are in students' hands. At the elementary level, children will be sent home with devices far less frequently, while at the middle school level the devices will still go home, but in a more balanced way. Administrators said the goal is to make screen use intentional rather than constant across the school day.
The screen time limit arrives alongside other changes taking effect this year under New Jersey state law. Lebanon Township, like districts across the state, is entering the first year of a statewide bell to bell cell phone ban, and it is also the first year that cursive handwriting instruction returns for students in grades three through five. Together, the measures point classrooms back toward pen, paper and direct instruction.
The district's chief school administrator said 20 other districts have already reached out with interest in the new policy, which is expected to be formally approved at next week's school board meeting. Educators said the reaction from young people has been supportive; a reporter who described the plan to several teenagers over the summer said they welcomed it, with one response being simple relief that screens had become too much.