The School Leader?s Guide to Digital Wellness: Untangling Device Use and Student Well-Being

The School Leader’s Guide to Digital Wellness is a practical resource for schools grappling with the linked challenges of digital distraction and student mental health in the age of smartphones. Personal devices and constant connectivity are eroding attention spans, academic performance, and school climate, but simply banning phones or restricting access often falls short of addressing underlying issues. This book offers a comprehensive plan for K-12 educators to “untangle” students from unhealthy digital habits by blending practical policy measures, like structured limits on device use, with curricula and social-emotional learning that teach digital citizenship, self-regulation, and empathy online. Grounded in research-backed strategies and real-world success stories, these chapters show how school leaders, technology coordinators, and other administrators can manage student engagement and digital distraction through an empowering, proactive culture. Rejecting the false choice between unrestricted access and wholesale removal, this book equips school leaders with a framework for using technology intentionally, building the habits and literacies students need to thrive in a connected world.

Andrew Marcinek is the Director of Information Technology at Seattle Preparatory School in Seattle, Washington, and Co-Founder of Think Forward Solutions, an EdTech & IT Consulting firm. A former teacher, he was the Chief Open Education Advisor at the U.S. Department of Education.