August 4, 2025
Dear Putnam Valley Community,
On July 21, 2025, the Putnam Valley Board of Education approved Policy 5695 titled “Students and Personal Electronic Devices” to ensure compliance with the newly enacted NYS Education Law §2803. This law requires that all public schools in NYS prohibit the use of internet-enabled devices during the entirety of each school day, with the hope that by removing said distractions, student engagement will increase, and the negative mental health issues associated with excessive smartphone usage will begin to decrease.
The State gave each school district flexibility in how to enforce this bell-to-bell ban, and through collaboration with various stakeholders within the community, including, but not limited to, teachers, parents, students, administrators, and members of our support staff, Policy 5695 was created, approved, and adopted into the District’s Policy manual.
New York State has required schools to implement these bell-to-bell bans starting with the 2025-26 school year. What this means for parents, guardians, and students is that every Putnam Valley school now has a policy prohibiting the use of non-district-provided internet-enabled devices, from the beginning of the school day, through the very last bell. Students will not be able to use internet-enabled devices during lunch, free periods, or transitions between classes.
To comply with NYS’s storage of internet-enabled device requirements, all students at the middle and high school level must silence their phones (and other devices) and store these in their lockers for the entirety of the school day. Storage in a student’s backpack is not compliant with this policy. Students at the elementary level are discouraged from bringing internet-enabled devices to school, and any device that is brought in must be silenced and kept in the student’s cubby, or securely stored by the teacher. Regardless of the school, in the event of non-compliance, the student’s device may be confiscated and held in the main office until a parent or guardian can pick it up, and/or the device will be locked away in a secure pouch for the duration of the day.
A common concern that students, parents, and guardians have raised is how a parent or guardian gets in contact with their child during the school day. We understand the ease of being able to communicate via text message, but the distractions of internet-enabled devices to the learning community outweigh the convenience they offer, therefore parents/guardians are encouraged to contact their children via school email, a phone call or email to the building’s main office, through the school nurse, a building administrator, or the clinical staff.
It is important to note that exceptions to this policy will be made when needed to comply with a student’s IEP or Section 504 plan, but requests for these exceptions must be made to the Building Principal, approved by the Superintendent, and include documentation from an appropriate healthcare professional, specifying why a healthcare exception is necessary.
We are embarking on a new age, one where students are being asked to part with items that have served as their source of comfort since pre-COVID times. The transition will be difficult, but not impossible, and the reward promises to be great, not just from an educational standpoint, but to the overall health and well-being of all students within our District, and within our State.
Prior to the start of the year, building principals will share resources for families, which will include contact numbers in the event you need to reach your child during the school day. If additional supports are needed or if you have further questions about your child’s building’s policy, please feel free to reach out to your respective building principal or assistant principal for assistance.
We look forward to partnering with you as we implement NYS’s new law, and we hope that through a collaborative effort between our schools and our families, student compliance will become standard practice, and that the new normal will cultivate greater creativity and community within our District.
Thank you,
Dr. Jeremy Luft
Superintendent of Schools