Thriving Together

Dear St. Edmund’s Academy Families,

At St. Edmund’s Academy, childhood is not something to be rushed. It is at the center of everything we do.

In spring 2024, families and educators began developing Thriving Together, a shared commitment to preserving attention, fostering genuine connection, and supporting children’s healthy development. Our team collaborated to shape this work from its earliest stages, bringing both their leadership and personal experience to questions many families were beginning to confront in their own homes.

We formally introduced Thriving Together that fall. The framework includes a revised school Technology Agreement and voluntary family guidelines that provide clear expectations and practical support for digital wellness at school and at home.

The need was becoming increasingly clear. Today’s children are growing up in a world designed to compete for their attention. What is at stake is more than concentration. It is their opportunity to develop independence, resilience, healthy relationships, sound judgment, and a strong sense of self.

For that reason, Thriving Together was never intended simply as a technology policy. It is a Core Values-based framework rooted in respect, honesty, responsibility, high standards, service, and understanding. It reflects a developmental conviction that children thrive when the adults around them thoughtfully shape environments that protect attention, encourage genuine interaction, and leave room for the gradual work of growing up.

At the heart of the framework are four shared commitments. They are not rules imposed from above, but choices our community has made together to protect children’s attention, relationships, independence, and opportunity to experience a full childhood.

Since the launch of Thriving Together, those commitments have remained our compass, and their benefits have become visible in classrooms, homes, and relationships.

Teachers noticed first.

Without the hum of hidden devices and the pull of personal screens, classrooms felt more grounded. Students looked up more often. They lingered in conversations. Teachers spent less time redirecting attention and more time teaching.

In spring 2025, 82 percent of faculty reported noticeable improvements in student behavior, focus, and engagement. One teacher observed:
“There have been fewer instances of students trying to check phones during the day, which reduces disciplinary interactions and makes space for learning and positive student-teacher and student-student relationships.”

Another shared:
“I loved that we did this. It was more impactful than I expected it to be. As much as students were upset when we announced it, they complied quickly and hardly seemed bothered after the first week.”

Children adapt quickly when the environment around them is clear, consistent, and designed with their development in mind.

Parents responded with similar clarity. Every respondent to our spring 2025 family survey strongly supported the Thriving Together framework and expressed appreciation for the purpose it brought to daily life at school.

One parent wrote:

“Can’t be happier that we’re part of a school community that does this.”

Another reminded us that presence is a practice for adults as well as children. That point matters. If we hope to help children develop focus, empathy, judgment, and integrity, then they need to see those habits modeled by the adults around them. Digital wellness is not something we ask of children. It is work we share with them.

Our students have also helped us understand the complexity of the issue.

Some expressed pride in not owning a smartphone, describing how that choice helped them concentrate and feel more present. Others spoke candidly about what they missed.

One student said:
“I just like to have my phone on me at all times. I don’t like when I don’t see my phone in sight.”

Another worried:

“What if the school catches fire? Then my watch will burn in the flames.”

And another offered a more measured view:

“I think it is good to put the device away to keep focus, but I also think it is nice to get steps on watches and achieve a goal.”

Their comments remind us that devices are not merely distractions. For many young people, they can represent independence, comfort, connection, and routine. Our responsibility is not to dismiss those feelings, but to help students examine them. This is a school where children are heard, and where adult guidance is strengthened by understanding what children are actually experiencing.

The longer-term patterns are encouraging as well.

In the fall of 2025, 70 percent of returning students in Grades 6 through 8 did not yet own a smartphone. Among that group, 90 percent said they planned to wait until at least eighth grade to get one.

One student told us:

“It feels kind of powerful to be the one who doesn’t have it.”

Another said:

“I don’t mind waiting. I like real life better.”

Their answers are simple, but the disposition behind them matters. They are learning that growing up does not require doing everything as soon as it becomes available. They are learning that independence can also mean making deliberate choices about what deserves their attention.

That same developmental question now extends to artificial intelligence.

During the 2026–2027 academic year, St. Edmund’s Academy is developing a Core Values-based framework for student use of AI. Building on our existing guidance for educators and informed by student and alumni research, faculty expertise, and family perspective, this work will result in a schoolwide position statement, a formal student-use policy, and developmentally appropriate guidance for Grades 1–4 and for each grade from 5 through 8.

This framework will serve as a companion to Thriving Together. The technology is different, but the central questions are familiar: How do we help children use powerful tools without surrendering honesty, independent thought, sustained attention, sound judgment, or the human relationships at the center of learning?

In spring 2025, Independent School Magazine invited Meghan Bollens and me to share the story of Thriving Together with a national audience. We had the privilege of writing that article together, drawing on the work of our community and on the personal experiences that helped give this initiative its urgency and purpose.

The recognition was meaningful because it reflected something our families, teachers, and students had built together. From the beginning, Thriving Together has been shaped by your hopes for your children, your willingness to make thoughtful choices, and your trust in the developmental purpose of this school.

Its most important outcomes are not found in an article or survey. They are found in classrooms where children look one another in the eye, at lunch tables filled with conversation, in friendships given room to deepen, and in young people slowly discovering that their attention belongs to them.

That is the work.

We are grateful for your trust and for the partnership that makes it possible. Together, we are creating the conditions in which children can grow with greater focus, stronger relationships, increasing independence, and the confidence to meet the world without being consumed by it.

Warmly,
Chad Barnett, PhD
Head of School
St. Edmund’s Academy

Commitments of Thriving Together:

List of 4 items.

No phones at school

School is a place for attention, interaction, and presence. By storing phones and smartwatches during the day, we give students space to focus, learn, and connect face to face. They are freer to be children—not always plugged in, not always on.
No smartphones before age 14

Childhood is too brief to rush. Waiting to introduce smartphones allows children to grow in confidence and curiosity before facing the pressures of digital life. It gives friendships room to deepen and imagination room to breathe.
No social networking apps before age 16

Social networking apps ask children to perform before they fully know who they are. Delaying it protects their emotional well-being and gives empathy and self-understanding time to take root.
More life beyond screens

Books, music, friendships, nature, games, and play—these are not quaint relics of a simpler time. They are the joyful, enduring pieces of a full childhood. They teach children how to be in the world, not just how to scroll through it.

Ready to join our community in this effort?

At St. Edmund’s Academy, we recognize the importance of collective action grounded in our Core Values of respect, honesty, responsibility, high standards, service, and appreciation of diversity. Ready to join our community in this effort?

SIGN THE THRIVING TOGETHER PLEDGE