Smithfield approves revisions increasing parent involvement in student gender policy
Smithfield’s School Committee approved revisions to its transgender, gender-nonconforming and transitioning-student policy.
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Friday, November 13, 2026
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What’s moving in phones
The debate over phones, screens and the school day.
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What’s moving in AI
How artificial intelligence is changing classrooms and school rules.
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Students speaking up, organizing and helping shape their schools.
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Latest Rhode Island stories
New phone rules add a two-day detention for a first offence at the high school
On August 13, 2026 the committee adopted amended policies I-2 and G-14 on personal electronic devices, written to comply with a new state law, together with revised high school and middle school handbooks. The rules require students to keep phones in a backpack or locker rather than on their person, and the policy subcommittee added a two-day detention to the consequences for a first offence at the high school after administrators asked for a stronger deterrent. Administrators reported about 600 device infractions in the previous year. The requirement that every student be issued a locker was dropped after the committee decided not to make students leave backpacks in lockers.
Committee scheduled a vote to change the student electronic device policy
The notice for the August 11, 2026 public meeting lists Resolution 26-08-05, a vote to amend the district's Electronic Device Policy, which sets the rules for phones and other personal devices in school. An updated version of the policy was on the work-session agendas for July 6 and August 3, 2026. The filed notices do not include the text of the change, and no minutes for the August 11 meeting had been filed with the state as of this review.
Bus eligibility expanded to second grade after safety gap identified
The School Committee voted 4-0 (Chair Peck abstaining) to add second grade to the existing kindergarten and first-grade busing radius, after identifying a gap in which second-graders were not old enough to be released independently but were not eligible for busing.
Foster-Glocester Regional School District
School breakfast up 25 cents, lunch up 50 cents
The School Committee approved a $0.25 increase in the price of school breakfast and a $0.50 increase for lunch, taking effect for the 2026-2027 school year. The votes came at the first meeting after voters cut the district's budget back to the previous year's level.
State approves redesign plan for Slater Middle School
On July 28, 2026 the superintendent reported that Rhode Island's Council on Elementary and Secondary Education had approved the district's redesign plan for Samuel Slater Middle School, to begin in the 2026-27 school year, after an independent review found it met every evaluation indicator. Six conditions were attached, covering professional learning, phased rollout, long-range facilities planning, an implementation project plan, progress monitoring and reporting. Slater had to be redesigned because it stayed in the state's Comprehensive Support and Improvement category for more than four years; closing the school was one of the five options the state allowed.
Four bus routes cut, new centralised stops, and a boundary change for some kindergarteners
Following the new bell times, new routing software has removed four full bus routes, short of the district's target of five. Some children will now walk to centralised bus stops rather than being picked up nearer home, because several roads in the district are narrow and not always plowed. Separately, incoming kindergarten children who do not already have a brother or sister at Western Coventry Elementary will be assigned to Washington Oak instead, because Western Coventry has run out of classroom space. The district said this affects five incoming children.
Coventry adopts a student cell phone policy required by new state law
The School Committee gave final approval to a Student Use of Personal Electronic Devices policy on July 23, 2026, after a first reading in June. The superintendent said the Rhode Island General Assembly had recently passed a law requiring every district to adopt such a policy, and that this one follows the state's wording and adds guidelines for how schools put it into practice. A member asked whether the district would have to buy phone pouches; the chair said that if pouches turned out to be required they would be another unfunded state mandate.
Committee rejects changes to its transgender student policy after a long public hearing
On July 16, 2026 the Cumberland School Committee voted 5-2 to reject proposed amendments to policy A-7, which governs how the district handles information about transgender and nonbinary students, leaving the existing policy in force. About thirty people spoke at the public hearing, almost all of them opposing the amendments. The district's attorney had advised that a recent US Supreme Court decision put the current policy out of compliance and that doing nothing carried legal risk. Andrew Bacon and Jason Dean voted against rejecting the amendments; Dean said he was not willing to abandon parental rights.
More from the news desk
New attendance rules tighten tardies and early pickups
On July 16, 2026 the committee voted 4-0 to adopt a rewritten attendance and academic achievement policy, JE. It sets out early identification of chronic absenteeism, tiered interventions, family engagement, and definitions of excused and unexcused absences, tardiness and early dismissals with limits and consequences; the superintendent said the biggest changes were in the unexcused absence, tardiness, dismissal and truancy section. Students identified as significantly off track receive targeted support, and grade retention is considered only after interventions. The district reported chronic absenteeism of about 10 percent, or 234 students, in November 2025.
Woonsocket Education Department
Elementary day grows 10 minutes and start times change
On July 15, 2026 the committee voted unanimously to add 10 minutes to the elementary school day from 2026-27. Rhode Island requires 330 instructional minutes a day. Since 2018 Woonsocket had been allowed to count extra recess minutes toward that total, but the state education department told districts this spring that recess no longer counts. The extra 10 minutes go on the end of the day: Bernon Heights, the Pothier-Citizens campus and Savoie will run 8:45 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and Coleman, Harris and Globe Park 9:15 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
District will draft a sports eligibility policy after Supreme Court ruling
The district solicitor told the School Committee that a United States Supreme Court decision allows schools to decide athletic eligibility on the basis of biological sex, and advised that matching district policy to the ruling is the safest course. He and Superintendent Mark Garceau said they would revive the earlier policy language and bring a draft back for the committee to consider. No policy has been adopted, and members discussed unresolved questions about how sex would be verified, how the rule would be enforced and how parents would be told.
AI will now phone parents when a child is absent
The superintendent reported that Burrillville has signed on to a state Department of Education pilot of EDIA, an artificial intelligence tool for monitoring attendance. Instead of a school secretary ringing round, the system automatically sends text messages, phone calls and emails to parents and guardians when a child is marked absent. He described it as an actual voice that picks up the parent's response, holds a conversation and records the data, which is stored in the district's student information system. The pilot is free to the district for its first year, and the state hopes to extend it for two more.
Three elementary schools move to a 9 a.m. start, arts school to 8 a.m.
On July 1, 2026 the school committee voted unanimously to change bell times: Curvin-McCabe, Agnes E. Little and Potter-Burns elementary schools move to a 9:00 a.m. start, and the Jacqueline M. Walsh School for the Performing and Visual Arts moves from 7:50 to 8:00 a.m. The change lets the district drop from three staggered bus tiers to two, cutting about three bus routes and saving roughly $360,000 a year. Earlier routing changes had already removed five buses and about $600,000. Free before-school care with breakfast starts at 8:00 a.m. at the three elementary schools.
First homeschooling policy requires proof of a child's age and bars district diplomas
On June 25, 2026 the committee passed the first reading of policy I-18, its first written home instruction policy, on a 5-2 vote with Andrew Bacon and Jason Dean opposed; it was adopted on the same margin on July 16. The policy requires families to show a birth certificate or other legal document proving a student's age, lists required subjects, limits homeschooled students' participation to academics, interscholastic athletics and clubs, and states that homeschooled students are not awarded district diplomas and do not take part in graduation events. A homeschooling advocate told the public hearing the age requirement has no basis in state law and that the committee lacks authority to add it.
North Smithfield School District
District proposes rules for who gets the school playing fields
At a public workshop the superintendent set out a draft structure for prioritising use of the district's athletic fields and discussed a hybrid model for managing them. The committee agreed a field use prioritisation policy would come back in July. Four days later it extended the facilities management contract only short term, with the athletic director taking over scheduling while the outside company continues to handle concessions, bathrooms and other maintenance. The question of who may use school fields, and who is covered by school insurance when they do, had run through the year since an insurance trust briefing in October.
Exeter-West Greenwich Regional School District
School meal prices rise, adding about $23,000 for families
The School Committee approved an increase in elementary and secondary school meal prices. The superintendent said the increase represents approximately $23,000 more than last year across the district. At the same meeting he reported the FY2026 budget was projected to end with a balance above the 2 per cent set aside, and introduced Dr. Kristen Stringfellow, who had been serving as interim senior high school principal.
Meal prices set and food service contract renewed for 2026-27
The School Committee voted 6-0 to set school breakfast and lunch prices for the 2026-2027 school year and, in a separate 6-0 vote, to renew the district's food service management contract with Chartwells for FY2027. The minutes record the votes but not the price figures, and the contract was not filed with them.
Early entry to kindergarten ends; September 1 birthday cutoff applies
The School Committee voted unanimously to eliminate the Early Entry to Kindergarten Policy 2513. The assistant superintendent explained that removing it aligns the district with Rhode Island law, so a child's eligibility for kindergarten now follows the state's September 1 birthday cutoff rather than a district exception. The committee had held the vote over from June 3 specifically to allow a second reading and public feedback.
Providence Public School District
New policy bans phones during class for grades 6-12
The board's Policy Committee adopted a Student Cell Phone Policy on a second read requiring that phones stay away — not out on desks or in use — during instructional time for students in grades 6 through 12.
North Providence Public Schools
Committee adopts a new student cell phone and device policy
The School Committee voted 7-0 to adopt a new Student Cell Phone and Electronic Device Policy. At the same meeting it approved an updated Bring Your Own Device policy, which sets the rules for personal laptops and tablets brought into school, and a new protocol to go with it. The detailed cell phone protocol, the document that spells out how the rule is enforced day to day, was still being brought back for a vote in August 2026.
North Providence Public Schools
Chartwells wins the school meals contract, and families get a new way to pay
The School Committee awarded the student food service bid to Chartwells on May 27, 2026, then approved the Chartwells contract on June 15 subject to review by the state education department and the district's lawyer. Alongside it the committee approved a point of sale software update in April and, in March, expanded MySchoolBucks so more families can pay for meals online.
North Providence Public Schools
School start times will stay the same next year after a state transportation study
In April 2026 the committee approved proceeding with the recommendations of a Rhode Island Department of Education transportation efficiency study, which the agenda said included possible changes to school start and end times. In June the superintendent reported that, based on the study, the school department will not change start times for the 2026-2027 school year.
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