Screen time bans are on school board agendas across the country, and the scrutiny is no longer stopping at the phone in a student's pocket — it has reached the device on the desk. But the question schools are being asked is one they cannot win. Whatever number you name will sound like too many minutes.
Dr. Natasha Rachell, Director of Instructional Technology at Atlanta Public Schools, makes the case for a different question entirely: not how many minutes a student spends on a device, but what they are doing while they are on it. She unpacks the difference between screen use that is passive and solitary and screen use that is active and shared — category rather than quantity — and shows how that distinction reshaped the way her district evaluates classroom technology and talks about it with families.
You will leave with a practical framework for the conversation with parents and boards, a one-page scorecard for grading every tool in your building, and an answer for the moment someone asks it directly: isn't this just another screen?
Dr. Rachell leads instructional technology for Atlanta Public Schools, a district of roughly 50,000 students across 87 learning sites — neighborhood schools, charter partners, single-gender academies, and a college and career academy. Her department's operating theme is “Undeniable Impact,” and her stated philosophy is disarmingly simple: the task, not the tool. That makes her a useful person to hear from on screen time: she is not defending screens in the abstract, she is accountable for what happens on tens of thousands of them — in a district recognized by ISTE as a District of Distinction and cited in the U.S. Department of Education's 2024 National Education Technology Plan. She has also been named among the K–12 IT leaders to follow by EdTech Magazine.
“Technology isn't about chasing the newest tool. It's about delivering that undeniable impact.”
— Dr. Natasha Rachell, EdTech Magazine