Over the past few years Hoosic Valley has instituted new rules to limit the use of cellphones during the school day on campus. On May 6, 2025 NYS Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill instituting a ban on cellphones and other “internet enabled devices” from “bell to bell”. This new ban required a small update to our Personal Electronic Device policy to make sure that our language matches that of the state ban.
The new draft policy can be found here: Personal Electronic Device Policy
Some of the highlights of the policy include:
- Phones are not allowed to be used on campus through 13th period
- Building Principals and administrators will designate where phones can be stored during the school day if brought to school
- The State Education Department has just announced funding for schools to help store phones securely
- Our administrative team will utilize those funds for storage sites and will share the cell phone storage plan this summer
- Students can use the office phone to call home and parents can call the main office or attendance office to contact students
- Consequences for the use of cellphones have been updated
Following the adoption of the new Personal Electronic Device Policy this summer the district will update the Code of Conduct to reflect those changes. The Code of Conduct can be found on the Board Docs Page under policies as Policy 5300.
If you have suggestions for either of these policies please feel free to reach out to us.
Sincerely,
Jim Buhrmaster
Superintendent
Hoosic Valley CSD