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Amid a growing backlash against screen time use in and out of school, one upper Manhattan mom is starting a week-long initiative to help parents and educators limit devices and educational technology in the classroom and at home.
Olympia Kazi, the parent of a third and fifth grader, enlisted the support of her superintendent to convince the 38 elementary and middle schools serving more than 10,000 students in her local school district to cut out screens and offer more recess — as much as possible — next week.
Dubbed “Screen Break,” the week-long pilot program for Manhattan’s District 6, spanning Washington Heights and Inwood, also encourages families to ditch screens and come together as a community, offering a lineup of activities after school and on the two days off. (Monday is Memorial Day, and Wednesday is Eid). She suggests parents and guardians organize book clubs and documentary screenings about the risks of overexposure to screens, providing a list of resources, in English and Spanish, to get them started.
The surgeon general’s office this week raised the alarm about the dangers of screen time for young people, linking various health concerns to excessive time online, including anxiety, depression, poor sleep, and alcohol use.
Across the nation, families are fighting back against screens and ed tech in their children’s schools. In Los Angeles, the parent-led Schools Beyond Screens coalition helped push the school district to come up with a proposal that may include a total screen ban until second grade and other limits by age. Iowa recently passed a law limiting screens in schools. And in New York City, in addition to a grassroots surge of families calling for an AI moratorium in schools, parents on local Community Education Councils are taking action. The council in East Harlem’s District 4 last week passed a resolution to set school screen time limits based on age (and calls for strengthening student privacy protections).
“I think parents are seeing the consequences: privacy issues, lack of alignment of computerized assessments with better outcomes, and the mental health studies,” said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a neuroscientist and president of District 4’s Community Education Council.
Ultimately, Kazi hopes her Screen Break pilot will give families and educators an opportunity to pause and have some conversations about how prevalent screens have become in education since the COVID pandemic. And she wants to hear from schools afterward about what worked and what didn’t to help fine tune the program for next year.
“I think what happened with the pandemic is we were all rushed. It was an emergency,” said Kazi, a community advocate and former nonprofit leader whose children attend P.S. 187. “Things changed, and the things haven’t been evaluated to understand: What is working and what isn’t working? What is worthwhile keeping and what shouldn’t be kept?”
An effort to replace screens with other activities
The seeds for Screen Break week were planted when Kazi fired off a March 12 email to her superintendent, Renzo Martinez, and New York City schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels, telling them she didn’t want to lament about screen time in schools but wanted to do something “positive.” Her original idea was for a fully screen-free week with double recess, but she later realized the approach needed more flexibility based on schools’ needs. (She’s upset that her kids’ school, like many schools, only has 20 minutes of daily recess, and during inclement weather, they spend it inside watching movies or videos.)
To her surprise, Martinez agreed to work with her on the initiative, and together, they pitched it to the local Community Education Council.
Martinez did not respond for comment.
Martinez handled the school side of things, explaining the initiative to principals, while Kazi focused on family engagement and lining up community activities, she said. On Tuesday, for instance, she curated “book fest,” where the Washington Heights New York Public Library branch will do read-alouds in the garden of the Morris Jumel Mansion, and Uptown Stories will offer writing games. The Fountain Bookshop and Word Up Community Bookshop/Librería Comunitaria will have book giveaways. And there’s an improv class for all ages, in English and Spanish at The People’s Theater.
She wanted to make it easy for families and schools to participate, which is why she chose a three-day school week after state testing ended.
For her own family, Kazi hadn’t allowed her 10-year-old son to play video games, so she was incensed when she learned that his school used Prodigy Math, a game-based learning tool, in class. She was even angrier when she learned that the company also had a paid account option. She didn’t want her son to be exposed in school to a company with a commercial interest or put a burden on families who couldn’t afford accounts. But instead of complaining, she preferred to find a way to broaden the conversation.
“I’m a big believer in public schools and to show to everybody that these are our schools,” Kazi said. “We can make them what we want them to be as long as we do the work.”
Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.
