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Common Ground Event
Tues., March 19, 9:30 a.m. | Nueva School
Tues., March 19, 7 p.m. | The Menlo School
Wed., March 20, 9:30 a.m. | St. Andrew’s Episcopal School
“ScreenSmart: Best Practices for Media-Wise Families”

Dear Harker Families,

We want to remind you of the upcoming Common Ground workshop titled “ScreenSmart: Best Practices for Media-Wise Families” with Michael Rich, M.D., MPH and Manoush Zomorodi on Tuesday, March 19 at 9:30 a.m. at the Nueva School and at 7 p.m. at The Menlo School. There is an additional presentation on Wednesday, March 20 at 9:30 a.m. at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School. These presentations will be followed by a special Harker-sponsored Community Connect event on March 21 at The Harker School, described at the end of this email.

Dr. Michael Rich is an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and an associate professor of social and behavioral sciences at The Harvard School of Public Health. As an expert on children and media, Dr. Rich will offer research-based answers to questions about media use in the home and its impact on family health and child development. Manoush Zomorodi is a co-founder of Stable Genius Productions, a media company through which she investigates how technology is transforming humanity. In 2017, she gave a TED talk about surviving information overload and the attention economy. This TED talk was based on her most recent book, “Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Creative Self.”

For more information about the presentation and for alternative presentation dates and locations, visit the Common Ground website.

Common Ground will record this presentation. Several weeks after the conclusion of this presentation, you will find this recording as well as videos of past Common Ground presenters on the “Counseling and LIFE” tile. The password to access the videos is CGSSVideo.

We will also host a Community Connect event on March 21 at 8:30 a.m. in the MPR on our middle school campus (3800 Blackford Ave). The Harker School values our parent community and its strength and skill set to support each other in parenting. We will provide the space to do so during this Community Connect event; the intent is for parents to share their experiences with and advice about digital media and parenting in a small parent group so that fellow parents can learn from one another. These discussions will be facilitated by representatives from our counseling department and our campus learning, innovation and design directors. If you plan to attend this Community Connect event, please email Kristin Carlson by Friday, March 15. The RSVP is important so that we can best organize and facilitate this discussion among parents.

To further support our parents, we continue to place parenting resources on our parent portal. You will find resources on time management, social emotional learning, and parenting in general.

I hope you find these presentations and resources helpful.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Gargano
Assistant Head of School for Academic Affairs
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