School districts are reaching a turning point in how they manage classroom technology.

After years of rapid device adoption and policies that often responded to one risk at a time, leaders are asking a harder question: How can schools protect students from cyberbullying, data theft, AI-enabled scams, distraction and online harm without cutting them off from the learning, creativity and connection technology can provide?

In this episode, Tricia speaks with Harrison Parker, Executive Vice President at Linewize, about the shift from reactive restrictions toward a more coordinated approach to student digital safety and well-being.

Harrison explains why this work cannot sit solely with a district's technology department. Effective digital safety connects IT leaders, educators, safeguarding teams, administrators, students and families. It also brings together prevention, early detection, intervention and education rather than treating each new platform or threat as a separate problem.

Their conversation examines three changes taking place across K–12 education:

• Moving beyond screen-time bans toward digital-health strategies that address distraction and burnout while preserving useful learning
• Replacing panic-driven AI bans with practical guardrails for privacy, safety and classroom use
• Managing the "3 PM hand-off" by helping families understand and supervise what happens on school-issued devices after students leave campus

Harrison also discusses how districts can identify concerning online behavior earlier, understand which applications students are actually using and give families greater visibility into children's digital experiences.

In this episode:

• Why banning the latest technology rarely provides a lasting solution
• What schools need to know about student screen time and app use
• How AI is changing online risks for students and districts
• Why data privacy must be part of classroom AI decisions
• How schools can distinguish productive technology use from distraction
• What early detection and intervention can look like
• Why digital safety should not belong exclusively to the IT department
• How responsibility shifts when students take school-issued devices home
• Ways schools and families can develop a more coordinated approach
• How districts can protect students without abandoning technology-supported learning

Questions for your leadership team:

• Who owns digital safety in our school or district right now?
• How well connected are our technology, safeguarding, instructional and family-engagement teams?
• Do we know which digital tools students are using and how they are using them?
• Are our policies teaching students to navigate digital environments, or only restricting access?
• What happens to our duty of care when a school-issued device goes home?
• Are our AI policies based on specific risks, or on a general fear of the technology?
• How quickly could our current approach respond to a new digital threat?

About Harrison Parker

Harrison Parker is Executive Vice President at Linewize, the K–12 online safety division of Qoria. He works with district leaders across North America on digital safety, student well-being, technology management and family engagement.

Learn more:

Linewize: https://www.linewize.com/
Harrison Parker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harrison-parker-02951921

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Topics: student digital safety, screen time in schools, AI in education, cyberbullying, student mental health, online safety, data privacy, school-issued devices, digital citizenship, family engagement, educational technology and K–12 leadership

#StudentSafety #AIinEducation #DigitalCitizenship #SchoolLeadership #EdTech

What happens when the cost of healthcare forces someone to delay a doctor's visit, skip a prescription, or take on debt?

Tricia Friedman welcomes Dr. Camille Busette, executive vice president of Programs at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to discuss One Nation, Overcharged. The nationwide campaign brings people together to call for more affordable healthcare.

The challenge is widespread, but it is not shared equally. In this conversation, Tricia and Dr. Busette examine what the data reveals about healthcare costs, whose experiences are too often overlooked, and how sharing those experiences can help communities push for change.

Learn more about the campaign: https://onenationovercharged.org/

What if your next assessment asked students to pitch a board game—and explain when they chose to use AI?

In this episode, Tricia Friedman explores how game design can bring together research, persuasive writing, creativity, collaboration, and AI literacy. The central challenge: help students make thoughtful decisions about where AI supports their learning and where they want to work without it.

You don't need time to develop an entire board game. Tricia introduces a smaller game-pitch challenge, using the history of the Spokane River as an example that educators can adapt to their own curriculum and local context.

Together, we explore:

• A task that asks students to choose three moments to use AI and two to work without it—and justify those decisions.

• How matching game mechanics to a researched theme creates opportunities for testing, feedback, and revision.

• Connections to ELA, humanities, art, and mathematics through persuasive pitches, visual design, pricing, and material costs.

• How game reviews, playthrough videos, and crowdfunding pitches can become texts worth studying.

• What it means to approach assessment redesign with both boldness and humility.

A question to bring to your next planning meeting: How could an assessment make students' judgment about AI as visible as their final product?

Explore Tricia's free GAMES framework and consider where a game-pitch challenge could fit into an upcoming unit.

https://shifting-schools-games.netlify.app/

Reach out: tricia@shiftingschools.com