PAUSE Group Urges Steamboat Schools to Limit Early Grade Screen Time

“PAUSE was born out of a shared belief and question of, what does our community actually want for our children?”

Tara Carver didn’t just ask that question; she held it up like a lantern in the dim light of the Steamboat Springs School District’s board of education meeting on Monday, May 18. She wasn’t shouting from the rooftops. She was standing at a podium, voice steady, asking the district to look at the faces of the students sitting in the back row and decide if the glow of a Chromebook was helping them learn or just keeping them quiet.

Carver and her fellow founders of Parents Against Unnecessary Screen Time in Education — PAUSE, naturally — didn’t come to tear the system down. They came to tune it. They believe the district has the capacity to lead, to make a deliberate choice about technology rather than letting it become the default setting for kindergarten through third grade.

“If we don’t build clear developmentally appropriate policies now, we are making a default decision to allow more screens in our classrooms,” Carver said. It’s a subtle distinction, but it matters. It’s the difference between using a tool and being used by it.

Kelly Latterman, another founding member, drove that point home with the kind of clarity that cuts through the usual bureaucratic fog. “PAUSE is not anti-technology,” she told the packed room. “Screens have an appropriate place. But screens are also a tool, not a teacher.”

Think about that for a moment. In a classroom where the foundation for reading, writing, math, and emotional regulation is being laid, who holds the brush? The teacher, or the tablet? Latterman argued that the real work, the messy, human work of learning how to be a person; belongs in the hands of teachers and other students, not in the cold, unblinking eye of a screen.

The group didn’t start in a boardroom. It started over mahjong.

Heidi Wehrly, a founding member, described the origin story with a warmth that felt distinctly local. A group of moms gathered for a treasured girls’ night, the kind where the conversation drifts from the game to the real worries of parenting. They circled back to the familiar, exhausting conversation about screen time in classrooms. Eventually, they decided to stop just talking and actually do something.

That “something” took shape this spring. Seven founding members - Wehrly, Carver, Latterman, Loryn Duke, Martha Murphy Compton, Rachel Sunde, and Rita Brown. launched the movement. Now, over 40 community members are involved. They issued a survey in early May, and the results came back loud and clear. Over 11 days, they received 108 responses. Seventy-two noted screen time concerns. Sixty-one suggested policy revisions.

It wasn’t just parents, either. Nine teachers and staff members weighed in, adding their voices to the chorus. The themes were consistent: developmental harm in early grades, digital programs replacing actual teacher instruction, and a general sense that the technology is outpacing the pedagogy.

Chloe Whitlock, a rising seventh-grader at Steamboat Springs Middle School, stood up during the public comment period to give the student perspective. She didn’t just cite studies; she cited her own life. She talked about eye strain that made her head throb, sleeping issues that left her groggy, and the way attention spans seemed to shrink with every notification. She talked about the addiction to school devices, a dependency that spilled over into the evenings and weekends.

“This change needs to happen now, before it’s too late,” Whitlock said. Her voice didn’t waver. It was the voice of someone who has already lived through the transition and is watching the next generation stumble into the same digital maze.

The district listened. The survey results were shared, the arguments were laid out, and the question hung in the air, heavy and urgent. What do we want for our children? Is it a screen, or is it a foundation?

Outside the school, the Colorado wind was picking up, rattling the dry grass along the roadside. Inside, the debate continued, not with shouts, but with the quiet, persistent pressure of parents who know that time, unlike a software update, doesn’t wait for a reboot.