Articles

Dear Bridge Point Families, many schools now hand every student a Chromebook on the first day of kindergarten. We studied the research closely before deciding whether to do the same, and it led us to a more deliberate approach, especially in our youngest grades.

Young Children Learn Best With Their Hands

Before a child can think abstractly on a screen, they need the foundations that come from handwriting, turning paper pages, and touching real objects. Children remember and recognize letters better when they write them by hand than when they type them, and brain imaging shows handwriting engages far more of the brain than keyboarding does. For a five, six, or seven year old still building these skills, a Chromebook does not speed up learning. It quietly gets in the way.

Our foundation relies on: Handwriting practice • Printed books • Math manipulatives • Hands-on STEAM • Outdoor learning • Face-to-face collaboration

What the Research Shows

• A U.S. study of kindergarten through 3rd grade found classroom technology tied to lower achievement and widening achievement gaps.
• Across 31 countries, the heaviest classroom computer users scored lower in reading and math than moderate or light users.
• Children who type new words remember them less well than children who write them by hand, and the gap widens as tasks get harder.
• Meta-analyses of over 170,000 readers found paper consistently beats screens for reading comprehension, especially in young children.

Our Bridge Point Approach

• In grades K–2, core reading, writing, and math stay screen-free, built on paper, pencils, and hands-on materials.
• Where a student needs assistive technology, an IEP, 504, or English language support, we use it deliberately and specifically.
• In grades 3–5, Chromebooks appear occasionally for a specific, teacher-directed task, never as a daily default.
• Our STEAM identity means real building, unplugged coding, and lab work come first. Screens are a tool we reach for on purpose.

Chromebook Adoption

Share of K–12 device shipments

• 2012: <1%
• 2016: 58%

As Chromebooks flooded American classrooms, national reading scores did not rise. By 2024 they had slid back to early-2000s levels.**

“Those that use the internet every day do the worst.”

Heavy Classroom Screen Use

½ School Year of lost learning linked to the most intensive classroom technology use*

The Bridge Point Way

• K–2: Paper First. Core instruction stays screen-free and hands-on. Our youngest learners build literacy and math skills with paper, pencils & hands.
• 3–5: Purposeful Use. Chromebooks appear occasionally, with purpose.
• 6–8: Digital Literacy. Intentional digital literacy builds toward high school.
• Access: Assistive technology is available whenever a student needs it.

*OECD, Students, Computers and Learning (2015 PISA study); Gorjón & Osés (2023) analysis of OECD PISA data. **Futuresource Consulting device data; NAEP reading trends, 2013–2024; Ahn (2022) ECLS-K:2011 study.

Every parent looking at schools asks the same quiet question behind every tour and brochure: will my child be known here? Will they be safe? Will they be challenged? Will they leave this place better than they entered it?

And every teacher walking into a new building asks a version of the same question: will I be able to do my best work here? Will I be trusted? Will I have what I need to teach the way I know how?

After more than two decades leading K–12 charter schools, I have come to believe these two questions have the same answer. A school that is great for children is, almost without exception, a school that is great for the adults who teach them. The two cannot be separated. You cannot have stressed, undervalued, fragmented teachers producing students who feel safe, known, and ambitious. The student experience is downstream of the adult experience.

This is why, when families ask me what makes a school great, I do not start with curriculum or test scores or facilities. I start with something narrower, harder, and far more important. I start with culture.

School culture is the felt experience of working and learning in this place. It is how teachers feel about their work, how the adults treat one another, and how children experience being there. Everything else (academic results, family loyalty, the sustainability of the school itself) flows from this.

Most of what gets called “school culture” is decoration. Mascots, slogans, mission posters, the colors on the wall. None of that is culture. Those are the surface signals of something deeper happening, or not happening, between the people inside the building.

For parents, real culture shows up in moments you cannot see on a tour. It shows up in how the teacher greets your child on a hard morning. In whether your child’s name is spoken with affection in a hallway conversation between adults. In whether your child can take a creative risk in front of classmates without fear. In whether they come home tired in the way that means they were challenged, or tired in the way that means they were drained. A school’s culture is what your child carries home in their body at the end of the day.

For teachers, culture shows up in whether you can close your classroom door at the end of the day and feel proud of what happened inside it. In whether your colleagues have your back when a parent meeting goes hard. In whether your judgment is trusted, whether your creativity is welcomed, whether the people leading you treat you as a professional rather than a problem to manage. It shows up in whether you go home depleted by the work you signed up for or depleted by everything else.

When culture is right, both experiences hold at once. The child is known, challenged, and safe. The teacher is competent, trusted, and supported. Neither happens without the other, and both happen together or not at all.

The research backs this up. Studies of teacher stress consistently show that overwhelmed teachers produce measurably weaker instruction not because they care less, but because the human mind cannot do its most creative, attuned, judgment-rich work under stress. Strong schools build the conditions under which great teaching can actually appear. Weak schools assume great teaching will appear regardless. It will not.

This is the work we take most seriously at Bridge Point. Not because it is soft. Because it is the only foundation strong enough to hold real academic outcomes over time and the only foundation worthy of the children and teachers who walk in every morning trusting us with their days.

For parents considering a school: ask about the culture, but do not ask in the brochure language. Ask the teachers what makes them stay. Ask the children what they look forward to. Ask the leader what they are most proud of having protected. Those answers will tell you more than any number on a report card.

For teachers considering where to teach: trust the building that treats your time and your judgment as sacred. That is where your best work will live.

The school that gets this right does not ask families and teachers to choose between joy and rigor, belonging and outcomes, warmth and excellence. It refuses the false choice and builds the conditions under which all of those grow together. That is the school we are building at Bridge Point.