Sewanhaka students will likely see changes to their cell phone access come the fall. And, if the board listens to members of the Muslim community who spoke at their Tuesday meeting, they’ll also see an additional holiday on their calendar.
In response to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s bell-to-bell school cell-phone ban, which is to be implemented in the next school year, Superintendent Regina Agrusa presented the Sewanhaka community with the district’s initial proposal to comply at the final school board meeting of the year on Tuesday, June 24.
“The board policy indicates that cell phones will be stored in student lockers and will not be accessible to students for the duration of the day,” Agrusa said of the proposed policy, which is currently up for review. “Students leaving the building during the school day to attend a CTE program, participate in a school field trip, or seniors leaving for lunch may take their cell phones with them.”
She added that parents will be able to call the main office, health office, or school counseling office if they need to speak to their child. Students will also be able to use their phones if they need to contact a parent. Teachers will need to provide instruction about the use of cell phones, she said, but the district will still be supplying iPads to students for learning purposes.
One district parent addressed the board to speak against the board’s current proposed policy, arguing that asking children to keep phones in their lockers would be impossible to enforce and would create chaos in the event of an emergency, which would result in students running through the halls to access their phones to contact a parent.
“The proposed phone policy will fail to create a phone-free environment for students,” she said. “For children with a true addiction, compliance will be impossible. It’s like asking a drug addict to put away their drugs for the day.”
She urged the board to review the policy and suggested it consider Yondr phone locking pouches instead of a locker strategy, which other schools have implemented.
Agrusa said the district has held multiple meetings with the parents, students and teachers while developing the policy.
Both she and school board President William Leder emphasized the cell phone policy was still under review and that the district was still looking for public input before voting to pass it before the start of the 2025-26 school year.
Members of the district’s Muslim community also addressed the board, speaking out against the lack of time off from school during the Eid holidays.
They said that this year, only one Eid, Eid al-Fitr, was recognized with time off, while the other, Eid al-Adha, was not. This resulted in students missing important tests if they chose to celebrate their religious holiday, they said.
Farhana Islam, a district parent, read a letter from her younger Muslim neighbor, who wrote about his experience missing school for Eid this past year.
“Schools should be closed on Eid al-Adha, because what if there is a test and the kids miss the test? This actually happened to me, because I missed a test, and then on Monday, I had two math tests, which was a lot of stress,” the letter reads. “I think that other Muslim kids would also feel anxious if they had to have two tests on one day because they took off for Eid.”
“Another reason why school should be closed on Eid is because there are only two Eids in a year,” the letter continued. “Our relatives might be mad at us for missing half the day because we had to go to school. If I had to go to school on Eid, I would have to skip going to the mosque, getting free ice cream, and most kids would probably hate that.”
After the meeting, Leder said that the board would consider amending the calendar for the upcoming school year.
He added that the Muslim community makes up a significant portion of Sewanhaka’s student body and that he personally supports recognizing the holiday.
The board also used its final meeting of the year to recognize and tenure over 50 teachers, faculty and staff, and honor 15 who were retiring from across the district’s five schools this year.
The board will meet again on July 8 for its annual reorganization meeting.
