Children's mental health is a crisis sweeping across America at an alarming rate.
Yet school faculty are consumed with snapping pictures during school hours and posting publicly on social media in hopes to be that school that goes viral. Technology, devices, phones, tablets, gaming and social media are THE NUMBER ONE leading cause for the majority of mental & physical health issues we are having with our youth. While this slide show is nice, I implore you to ponder this. It will require you to put your phone away.

There is a plethora of medical and scientific evidence and studies proving depression, add, anxiety, suicide, social isolation, obesity, many more are directly linked, related and worsened with screen time. This includes educational screen time. While we can't control screen time outside of schools here is a list of things WE CAN DO inside of them, FREE, at no cost:
Faculty and staff keep your phones away unless you are on your break, school board minimize the apps & sites teachers & parents have to use. We are missing the mark! STOP POSTING THE INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF THE SCHOOL AND CHILDREN ON PUBLIC SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILES. YOU ARE VERY MUCH PART OF THE PROBLEM and are committing a violation of children's rights (privacy regardless of parents' consent for photographs), subjecting them to bullying, identify theft, and cyber-crimes that we may not even be aware of yet. Go check out some of those videos and pictures you post, who are you truly posting them for? It isn't the children half of them look forced to perform. Stop interrupting the activity to record and publicize how " good" the school looks. Promote a healthy balance of tech time. Have tech free Tuesday's. Stop utilizing meta products as they are the leading ISP that sells, profits, and promotes child abuse material, as well as the worst platform to post public images of Children. Protecting our Children's mental health and fixing this very big issue starts with the phones, and US. We have very much failed by following the social media trends. I know you are worried "we will fall behind in the times, we have to keep up with the trends, don't we?" No, we won't fall behind and we will be the first to stand for the CHILDREN, not social media.

Dear School Board Members,

Our students need all of the mental health resources they can get.