This is because starting Tuesday, the school district officially restricted YouTube access on devices given to pre-kindergarten through fifth grade students.
"Principals and parents had been asking for us to turn it off as it is not necessary for learning in pre-K-5," Superintendent Toni Jones said in a statement. "There have been some issues with students watching videos that were not necessary for learning grade level content."
Jones said Greenwich Public Schools officials first started talking about this restriction in September during a principals meeting. Originally, the idea was to shut off YouTube on student devices through eighth grade.
But this brought "many challenges," Jones said.
"YouTube is utilized heavily in the middle school curriculum for research and other purposes," she said. "YouTube has specific channels which are outstanding resources for students' learning, such as National Geographic, NASA, Smithsonian, Discovery Education, the National Park Service and more. There are links directly embedded in many of our middle school resources."
For the elementary students, YouTube is restricted on their GPS devices both in and out of school. Elementary teachers, however, still have access to the site "so they can pull from a YouTube channel or page to share a primary resource, like a famous speech or natural events video from National Geographic," Jones said.
Jones confirmed that this YouTube restriction is "totally separate" from the cell phone regulation that the district publicized in September. According to that, elementary students should not be going to school with a cellphone.
However, if a parent feels as if there "is a safety need given unique circumstances, such as walking a long distance to or from school each day, then the phones must be off and away in lockers or backpacks for the duration of the school day," the regulation states.
Jones said in regards to restricting YouTube access on school-issued devices, the district did not receive a lot of calls about the issue and that this change was "largely driven by a request from the elementary principals who saw it as an unnecessary and distracting resource for young children."
"This is a welcome change for teachers and families," she said.
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