Episode #3
Screen Time Limits Are the Wrong Fight | Natasha Rachell, Atlanta Public Schools
Atlanta Public Schools serves 50,000 students across 80+ campuses. Natasha Rachell leads instructional technology for all of it, with a team that's shrunk from 39 people to 13.Her district is currently proposing screen time limits: minute caps for elementary, percentage caps for secondary. As Director of Instructional Technology, she understands why. Personally, she thinks we're asking the wrong question.In this conversation with James Symons, Natasha makes the case that "screen time" is a bucket we've thrown everything into, a student building a portfolio and a kid scrolling alone in their bedroom counted as the same thing. She argues the panic is adults projecting their own fear onto children who don't learn the way we did.She also talks about doing more with half the staff, why she hasn't let anything go (and why that might be a problem), and how her twin brother's traumatic brain injury reshaped how she thinks about accessibility and leadership. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (00:55) Where "undeniable impact" came from (03:37) Running a 50,000-student district with 13 people (05:54) What had to give (07:44) Jamaica to England to Toronto to Atlanta (09:35) "I see something in you" (10:37) Screen time: the research argument (13:16) "Our fear is being projected onto our kids" (17:28) All screen time is not equal (19:20) Where parents come in (20:05) Her brother's brain injury (23:14) How that changed her leadership (25:02) Technology and accessibility (26:55) What excites her about leading people (32:25) The 360 review (36:03) "Stop coming up with so many ideas" Natasha Rachell is Director of Instructional Technology at Atlanta Public Schools.
