Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is auditing how much time elementary and middle school students spend on Chromebooks each day, with results due to the Board of Education by March 2027.

Board member Julie Yang confirmed the timeline at a listening session Tuesday, Oct. 6, at Rockville Memorial Library, Bethesda Magazine reported. More than a dozen parents, teachers and elected officials attended the event, organized by the Montgomery County Council of PTAs (MCCPTA) technology committee.

The audit, which Yang introduced as a board resolution in July, covers kindergarten through eighth grade. It will measure average daily and weekly screen time, distinguish between instructional and non-instructional use, and assess whether content filters block inappropriate material.

The session's recurring theme: the district's phone ban doesn't address the bigger problem.

MCPS launched a "No Cell, Bell to Bell" policy this school year, requiring students to keep personal devices put away all day. But school-issued Chromebooks are exempt. Springbrook High School English teacher Elliot Berger told the session that without a requirement to store phones, "we have just gone backwards because students are using their phones. They're just not doing it as openly."

The deeper frustration, Berger said, is Chromebook overuse. "It's just demoralizing at times when the real problem is staring us right in the face," he said.

An MCCPTA survey of roughly 1,000 caregivers, students, teachers and administrators, released in January, found more than 70% of respondents thought there was too much Chromebook use. More than 70% also had concerns about how Chromebooks were used in school. Parents reported witnessing students gaming, browsing the internet, watching non-academic videos and accessing inappropriate content on school devices.

Chromebook maintenance is expensive. Screen repairs alone are estimated at more than $3 million for the 2026-2027 school year, with keyboard and trackpad fixes adding another $800,000, first reported by The Baltimore Banner.

Superintendent Thomas Taylor said at a board meeting in August that school-issued devices would provide critical data on which programs students use and how often. Betsy Tao, chair of the MCCPTA technology committee, called screen time the most critical issue in education at the Oct. 6 session. In August, Tao told The Banner that other districts are "far ahead of Montgomery County" and that her group was reaching out to learn from their audits.

Maryland's Joanne C. Benson Phone-Free Schools Act, signed by Gov. Wes Moore on May 27, requires all public school boards to prohibit student use of electronic communication devices during the school day. That law takes effect for the 2027-2028 school year. It does not cover school-issued devices like Chromebooks.

The audit results, due to the Board of Education in March 2027, are the next scheduled milestone.