KLSD Board bans cellphones ‘bell to bell’

By JEFF MORRIS

The Katonah-Lewisboro Board of Education has approved a “bell-to-bell” ban on cellphones and other internet-enabled devices.

The action came at its July 24 meeting, in accordance with the policy announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul as part of the state budget. Districts were given until Aug. 1 to get plans for their bans to the state education department. 

The Board of Education that night also discussed the tax levy for 2025-26. 

Personal electronic devices

As part of its consent agenda, the board voted to approve a revised district policy regarding Students and Personal Electronic/Internet-Enabled Devices. This was done by temporarily suspending the practice of holding three public readings of any proposed policy being recommended for adoption.

Under the policy, students are discouraged from bringing personal electronic devices to school. At the elementary level, student devices must be powered off and stored in student backpacks/cubbies. At the middle and high schools, devices must be powered off and stored in student lockers.

Trustee Arwen Thomas Belloni said a lot of people have been reaching out to her, and noting that there was already a policy in place restricting use in the middle and high school but it was largely not being enforced. 

“I know kids who text all day long,” she said, “so how are we going to monitor and enforce it?”

“We’re not going to be checking students for their phones and things like that,” responded Superintendent Ray Blanch. He indicated that now that the law is in place, if devices are seen, the school will be able to ask for them. Blanch said they are now looking at updating the codes of conduct and student handbook. “For example, on first offense, it may be, you get it at the end of the day; the second offense it may be, your parents have to come in and get that device.”

Blanch said, while at the middle and high schools devices are expected to be left in lockers and powered off.

“We won’t be looking at lockers and seeing if they’re in there or not,” he said. 

Belloni said a lot of the kids do not use lockers, and that she had been told by students they do not have enough. 

Trustee Bill Swertfager asked whether there are enough lockers. Blanch said there are. 

“We will probably repurpose some of the lockers that we do not use any longer in both our men’s and women’s locker rooms,” he said. “We’ve got lots of unused lockers in those spaces so we have that, at worst, to get us started.”

Trustee Carolyn Snell asked when they expected to get communication to parents about changes to the handbook. Blanch said notifications are in draft form, but in essence, it will be when parents are tuning back in. He had met with elementary PTO presidents the previous week, said Blanch, and answered questions about whether the policy applied to watches and AirTags (it does); he said it will take a little while to get used to all this.

“The policy of taking it and giving it back at the end of the day, and then the next offense the parent has to come in — that was already in place,” Belloni said. “A lot of kids didn’t see that as being a deterrent.”

She wanted to know if there was a possibility of saying parents have to come in for a first offense. Blanch said that is a building-level decision.

“We need the support of our parents,” he emphasized.

Board President Lorraine Gallagher noted, “Technology is a part of our society now, and there will be occasions when the educational efforts require the use of devices — so it’s hard to create a kind of one-size-fits-all policy.” 

She pointed out the state had required them to come up with a new policy in a very short period of time. 

“I don’t think this is a one-and-done conversation for the school year,” she said, “and if need be we can come back and revisit it any time.”

Tax levy

Assistant Superintendent for Business Lisa Herlihy said the district ended the 2024-25 year in a positive financial position, meaning the total tax levy will remain exactly as was presented during budget discussions.

There are minor changes in tax rates due to variations in assessed property values across the towns, Herlihy said; the largest variation is an increase of 25 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, which she called “not significant.”

The tax levy, she said, is directly linked to fund equity, which has three components: restricted reserves, which are funds limited by regulations to specific purposes; assigned or non-spendable funds, designated for specific future uses; and the unassigned fund balance, usually referred to as “the” fund balance, which is the 4% not limited or designated for specific purposes.

Herlihy said the unaudited total fund equity increased by approximately $1.5 million over the fiscal year. The major reason for that, she said, is a roughly $930,000 increase in interest earnings on their 2024 Bond Appreciation Note; that is in a restricted debt reserve that needs to be used to pay down the debt. There is also $180,000 in premium from closing on the 2025 BAN, which will be used next June when they pay down the BAN.

According to Herlihy, the $930,000 will be strategically spread out over the 18 years of the debt as part of long-range planning for years when they may need additional revenues, and noted there is an additional $35 million in BAN tied to bonds for the capital projects. She said the additional revenue is in a restricted money market account, and any interest will be used to pay down debt in the future.

On June 26, necessary reserve adjustments were projected, with the most notable change an increase of $200,000 plus interest in the capital reserve. Herlihy said that was done because there are still items in the district that need to be addressed. The reserve for encumbrances decreased significantly, said Herlihy; it is now roughly $100,000 lower than last year. She said that was because they put an earlier cutoff on spending in order to avoid carrying over encumbrances for which they had not yet received invoices into the next fiscal year. 

In June, the board had already designated $1,100,000 from reserve funds as surplus funds. It was asked to apply an additional $2,450,000 of surplus funds, resulting in a total allocation of surplus funds in the amount of $3,550,000, to be applied to reduce the tax levy.

As explained by Herlihy, in May the voters approved the expenditure portion of the budget, and the board was now being asked to approve the primary revenue source, the tax levy. It then authorized the district to collect taxes in the total sum of $109,490,423.