Distraction-Free Schools Policy Enforcement Report

2025–2026 Distraction-Free Schools
Policy Enforcement Report

East Islip Union Free School District

Overview

The District’s distraction-free schools policy is intended to support focused learning environments while providing clear, consistent expectations for student use of internet-enabled personal devices during the school day. This annual report summarizes enforcement activity for the 2025–2026 school year and reviews enforcement patterns across student groups.

How to read the data: “Incidents” reflects the total number of recorded enforcement events. Because a student may have more than one incident, the number of unique students is shown separately. In the enforcement source data, the number in parentheses represents the number of students.

Enforcement by School

Key takeaway: Approximately 87% of all enforcement incidents (350 of 403) occurred at the high school. The high school recorded 231 unique students with at least one incident; the middle school recorded 46.

Enforcement by Grade Level

Grade-level pattern: The highest proportion of students with an enforcement incident was in Grade 11 (27.5%), followed by Grade 10 (20.8%) and Grade 12 (18.5%). Rates were lower in Grades 6–8, with Grade 9 at 15.7%.

Demographic Equity Review

The equity review compares the demographic composition of students with at least one enforcement incident to the enrollment population. Because demographic groups differ in size, both counts and percentages are shown. A positive percentage-point difference means the group represents a larger share of students with an incident than it represents in enrollment.

Gender

Interpretation: Male students represented 50.0% of enrollment and 57.0% of students with an enforcement incident, a difference of +7.1 percentage points. Female students represented 50.0% of enrollment and 43.0% of students with an incident.

Race/Ethnicity

*Category alignment: The enrollment report uses “American Indian or Alaska Native,” while the enforcement dataset uses “Native American.” This draft aligns those categories for comparison. The enrollment report separately identifies Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander students; the enforcement dataset does not provide a separate category for that group.

Interpretation: Black or African American students represented 3.9% of enrollment and 6.9% of students with an enforcement incident (+2.9 percentage points). Hispanic/Latino students represented 25.7% of enrollment and 30.0% of students with an incident (+4.2 points). White students represented 64.4% of enrollment and 57.0% of students with an incident (−7.3 points). Other categories involved smaller numbers and should be interpreted cautiously.

Secondary-School Context

Because all 2025–2026 enforcement activity occurred in Grades 6–12, the following rate comparison provides additional context using only East Islip Middle School and East Islip High School enrollment. This avoids comparing secondary enforcement activity to elementary enrollment when examining race/ethnicity patterns.

Secondary pattern: Among Grades 6–12 students, 14.7% had at least one enforcement incident. The observed rate for Black or African American students was 26.8%, compared with 17.7% for Hispanic/Latino students, 12.9% for White students, and 9.5% for Asian students. The American Indian/Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander groups are too small for a stable rate comparison.

Students with Disabilities

The enforcement dataset identifies 95 incidents involving 58 students with disabilities. The District special education enrollment counts provided for this review identify 758 students with disabilities districtwide, including 505 students in Grades 6–12. Because all enforcement activity occurred in Grades 6–12, the secondary-school comparison provides the most meaningful context.

Interpretation: Students with disabilities represented 26.7% of Grades 6–12 enrollment and 20.9% of students with at least one enforcement incident. Their enforcement rate was 11.5%, compared with 15.8% for students without disabilities. This descriptive comparison does not indicate overrepresentation of students with disabilities in policy enforcement.

District Review and Ongoing Monitoring

The data identify patterns that warrant continued review, particularly the higher representation and secondary-school enforcement rate for Black or African American students and the higher representation of male students. Students with disabilities, by contrast, represented a smaller share of students with an enforcement incident than of the Grades 6–12 enrollment population. The District will continue to review implementation to promote consistent application of the policy across schools and student groups.

•       Review enforcement data periodically by building, grade level, gender, race/ethnicity, disability status, and repeat incidents.

•       Reinforce consistent administrative and staff procedures for responding to policy violations.

•       Examine whether grades, settings, or repeat-incident patterns are contributing to disparities and adjust supports as appropriate.

•       Continue to monitor disability-status enforcement rates, including repeat incidents and building- or grade-level patterns.

•       Use the annual review to determine whether additional mitigation steps are needed.