Cellphone ban, immigration, AI among challenges Long Island schools will face in 2025-26

Even after 25 years in education, Farmingdale High School science teacher Cordelia Anthony said she still greets the new school year with anticipation — and a little bit of nerves.

“The night before the first day of school, you're like anxious,” she said. “I'm sure it's different for everyone, but I definitely heard the same thing from a lot of people, like: ‘Oh man, I didn't even sleep that well because I was so excited.’ ”

As students and educators across Long Island return to school in the coming days, they will be greeted by the usual buzz of excitement as empty hallways and classrooms once again fill with young people. Amid the normal hubbub of students reconnecting with friends and adjusting to new teachers and classes, educators say this school year will usher in new challenges as well.

Among them are a new statewide “bell-to-bell” ban on student cellphone use in public schools and lingering questions over federal funding under the Trump administration. Local educators said they are also preparing to deal with the fallout of heightened immigration enforcement.

“Kids will be upset. Kids might be fearful,” said Lars Clemensen, superintendent for Hampton Bays schools. “Schools are putting themselves in a ready position to support kids.”

Meanwhile, as college students ponder artificial intelligence’s role in potentially reshaping the labor market, many K-12 educators said it is urgent to infuse the technology into today’s classrooms.

"We are preparing kids for their tomorrow, not ours," said Jared Bloom, superintendent of Franklin Square schools.

Here's what parents and students need to know about the 2025-26 school year.

School cellphone ban

Beginning the first day of school, students will no longer have access to their smartphones from the first bell to the last, unless they have qualified exemptions.

Educators expect the beginning weeks to be a transitional phase for all as school staff test and fine-tune their implementation plans. They anticipate some students will try to circumvent the ban.

Todd Winch, Levittown schools superintendent, said he had disagreed with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push for the bell-to-bell ban and favored a less restrictive approach, in part due to such concerns.

“No matter what, students will look for ways to try to access the internet with the devices,” he said. “We're going to have to be diligent” to enforce the new rules.

Levittown, like the majority of the Island's public school districts, chose to have students in upper grades store their cellphones in lockers, but at least 19 districts said they will use lockable pouches as another option.

Anthony, who teaches ninth graders, said in the past she had students put their phones in a box, but she found some would snatch their devices out of the box even before they went to the bathroom.

“They had to have their phone with them on the five-minute walk to the bathroom,” she said. “It's an addiction.”

With the new prohibition in place, Anthony said she hopes schools will help redirect students to face-to-face interactions and to stay in the moment — something she felt worsened after remote learning during the pandemic years.

“When kids were at home and they would turn off their cameras, you'd be teaching … and trying to get their attention,” she said. “I feel like they're still disconnected from the present moment.”

After a period of adjustment for everyone, parents included, the new environment may just become the norm, she said. “I can't say it's going to be easy,” she said. “But I think in the end overall, it should help with the distractions.”

Federal funding concerns

Local school leaders also are keeping a close eye on any potential changes to federal aid that could threaten initiatives such as after-school programs and teacher professional development.

“Federal funding is more [of] a concern this year than I think in the past,” said Bob Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association.

While such funding makes up only about 5% to 10% of Island districts’ budgets, those dollars can provide needed assistance, Vecchio said.

Title I, for example, provides aid to school districts for children from low-income families, while the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, provides federal grants and resources for special education programs.

“If there are cuts to federal aid, albeit it is a smaller portion of the revenue school districts get on the whole, it does impact the schools if there are cuts to Title I funding or [IDEA] funding,” Vecchio said. "So we’re paying attention to D.C. closely."

In July, schools across the country caught a glimpse of what federal funding cuts could look like when the Trump administration temporarily froze $6 billion in money that had already been allocated to schools.

The money, which was released later that month, was designated by some districts to help pay for after-school and summer programs, instruction for English language learners and professional development for teachers, Newsday reported at the time.

State funding is also a concern, advocates said.

B.A. Schoen, a regional expert on school funding from Baldwin, said the state budget was approved more than 30 days after the April 1 deadline, making it difficult for districts to plan their future spending.

Island districts ultimately received more than $270 million in additional state aid for this academic year, a 5.4% jump from the last one, Newsday previously reported. But, said Schoen, “Unpredictability is a real problem."

Immigration enforcement

Some educators said they are preparing to grapple with the fallout of the Trump administration’s heightened immigration enforcement across the country and on the Island.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have arrested more than 1,600 people on the Island with prior convictions since mid-January. The total number of arrests made by the federal agency, including those without criminal records, was not released, Newsday has reported.

And within his first days in office, President Donald Trump rescinded guidance that had protected migrants from being arrested by law enforcement while in or near locations such as places of worship and schools. No such arrests have been publicly reported on Long Island, but advocates have said the policy reversal spiked fear in immigrant communities.

“It will be interesting to see how schools address those concerns at the beginning to be able to support families, to reassure families that schools are places that are safe,” said Dafny Irizarry, president of the Long Island Latino Teachers Association.

Clemensen, in Hampton Bays, said educators are preparing to help children who may be traumatized by the arrests. “That sends a traumatic experience through the community and that will play out in schools,” he said.

He said administrators are updating emergency contacts and making sure proper documentation is in place in case a new guardian needs to be appointed for a student.

Anthony, who came to New York with her parents at age 7 from Antigua and Barbuda, a country in the Caribbean, said she’s worried about students' well-being and how the new immigration policies will affect learning.

“A lot of them, depending on their age, are very aware or concerned, and that impacts their ability to learn,” she said. For example, she said, “Anybody in that scenario would not be super concerned about me teaching them about the cell if that's what their day-to-day worries are.”

Educators said some school officials are worried about student attendance decreasing this school year.

Local schools, as well as those across the country, have for years struggled to reduce chronic absences that soared during the pandemic. Educators have said they worry attendance dips could set back recent improvements some schools made in getting children to attend consistently.

“Attendance impacts academic achievements,” Irizarry said. “Attendance will be a good indicator of who’s coming back, who’s not coming back.”

Recently, the Trump administration also rescinded an Obama-era guidance that laid out the educational rights of English language learners in the classroom, a move that advocates say could weaken support for them.

“What it signals to me is that this is a topic that is going to remain the forefront of conversation at the federal level,” Clemensen said.

AI in the classroom

As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, districts are working on integrating the powerful technology into classrooms of prekindergartners through high schoolers. Over the years, the use of generative AI such as chatbots and image generators has grown in Island schools.

According to a Pew Research Center survey of nearly 1,400 teens, 1 in 4 students aged 13 to 17 used ChatGPT for schoolwork in 2024, double what the organization found in 2023.

In Levittown, Winch said his district will pilot the platform Magic School AI, which helps educators with lesson planning, grading and personalized education. The tool also offers students tutoring, text translation and research assistance.

“This platform allows the teachers to customize the different features for the students so that they get the feedback teachers want them to get, as opposed to just correcting the work for the students,” Winch said.

In Franklin Square, which educates students from pre-K to sixth grade, Bloom said teachers and students use AI tools to assist instruction and personalize lessons.

“It’s a work in progress,” Bloom said of the ongoing evolution of AI. “What we see today is not going to be what we see a month from now.”

Educators noted schools’ obligation to ensure students and staff are using the technology properly and the need to protect student data privacy. They also said parents ought to be informed of when students use AI. But overall, many saw such integration as urgent.

“We have an opportunity here to get ahead of this,” Bloom said. “The tools we have available to us today are unlike what we’ve ever had before.”