Phone rule conflicts with new state law; no AI rule yet

What happened

At the July 21, 2026 meeting a board member asked the policy committee to take up two things: an artificial-intelligence policy, which the district does not have, and an update to its cell-phone policy, which she said now conflicts with a new state law. Neither has been adopted. In the meantime the rule families actually live under is in the 2026-27 handbooks, and it differs by age: elementary and middle-school pupils must have phones off and stowed from the moment they arrive on campus until the end-of-day bell, while high-school students only have to switch off during instructional time, and the high-school handbook says staff are not expected to police it.

Why it matters to families

Phone rules are one of the rules children and parents deal with every single day, and right now the district's own board member says the written policy does not match state law. None of the three handbooks says anything about artificial intelligence, so there is no published guidance on whether a student may use a chatbot for schoolwork.

The evidence

The July 21, 2026 recording captures a board member asking the committee to 'really get on the AI policy' and to 'get our cell phone policy updated because the [state] law is in effect and our policy does conflict with that'. The 2026-27 elementary, middle and high school handbooks carry the device rules quoted above; searches of all three for 'artificial intelligence', 'generative' and related terms return nothing.

The source