The Easthampton School Committee met on Aug. 27 in hybrid fashion.
Photo credit: Easthampton Media
EASTHAMPTON — A new cell phone policy will be implemented at Easthampton High School for the 2024-25 academic year.
During its regular meeting on Aug. 27, the Easthampton School Committee unanimously approved the district’s updated handbooks for the school year, including the EHS one, which contains adjustments to the school’s cell phone policy.
According to the updated handbook, which was read by Principal Bill Evans during the meeting, students will be required to store their cell phones in a teacher-specified area, like a phone pouch, during class time unless the phone is specifically allowed by the teacher to achieve a lesson objective.
Students may also choose to store their phone in a locker or at the main office.
If a student refuses to place their phone in a teacher-designated section during class, then the student will be subject to teacher intervention and may be sent to the main office for further discipline depending on the situation.
“We’re not taking phones at the beginning of the day and holding them until the end of day,” said School Committee chair Laura Scott. “We’re taking cell phones at the beginning of every class, and they’re returned at that class.”
According to the policy, students will only be able to access their phone before and after school, in-between classes, during lunch, during a supervised break, or if the student needs it for some type of emergency, mental health or medical reason.
“We will work with students,” Evans said. “We will come up with alternative plans that maintain the integrity of the program without denying students access that they need, provided that there’s a process and that there are either a team or a clinician or a professional who says this is why this is required.”
The School Committee was generally receptive to the changes. School Committee member Eric Guyette noted that these are positive enforcements for phone management in the school.
“This is something that is super necessary for the kids to say, ‘okay, I have to learn how to manage this [phone] as a tool,’” Guyette said.
Evans agreed with this sentiment in further remarks.
“I think what we’ve learned over the last few years is that, on their own, we need more guidelines, more restrictions, more boundaries around it, particularly during instructional time,” he said.
Aside from the cell phone policy, the updated EHS handbook also included information about the BRYTE Program, or Bridge for Resilient Youth in Transition, which is a new transition program at the high school for students returning to school after an extended absence and for students having trouble managing the demands of the school day.
During a meeting in May, the School Committee unanimously approved a memorandum of agreement between Easthampton Public Schools and the Brookline Center to establish the program at Easthampton High School for the next two years.
According to Julie Ann Levin, the district’s director of Curriculum and Grants, any student who has an absence from school or a school refusal for five or more days would be eligible for this program.
“We have students that need intensive support, and sometimes because special education is the only option for intensive support, students are found eligible for that support when we could be using a much more short-term, flexible model to provide that intervention,” Levin said. “So, that’s what BRYT is. BRYT is a general education intensive tier three support.”
The program will be staffed by a clinical coordinator and an academic coordinator. Referrals to the program are made by the student support team, according to Evans.
“It seems like a wonderful program and a great opportunity, and we hope to expand it back to the middle school level in the future,” Evans said. “I’m very excited to be introducing this service to our students.”
Readers can learn more about this new program by visiting past Reminder Publishing coverage: https://tinyurl.com/b2np72af.
The next regular School Committee meeting is scheduled for Sept. 10 at 6 p.m. in a hybrid format.
