Vashon schools near cellphone vote as budget pressures mount

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, June 23, 2026

As the school year nears its end, Vashon Island School District leaders are nearing a decision on what role — if any — cellphones should play in classrooms when students return in the fall.

After a high school privacy incident, a public forum, multiple school board discussions, student and staff surveys and a wave of emails from parents, Vashon’s School Board is expected to vote Thursday, June 25, on whether to adopt a stricter, bell-to-bell cellphone policy or revise the district’s current approach.

The vote will come the same night the board is also expected to take up the district’s budget — a second connected issue that has complicated the phone debate.

At a standing-room-only June 11 board meeting attended by about 50 community members, including teachers and school district staff and parents, the board heard testimony about phones, student safety, mental health, privacy, teacher workload and the financial strain already facing the district.

The central question is whether Vashon High School should move closer to McMurray Middle School’s “away-for-the-day” model, in which students turn in phones during the school day, or continue with a version of the high school’s current “off and away” policy, which bars phone use during class but allows students more access outside instructional time.

Interim Superintendent Jo Moccia told the board on June 11 that she now supports the board’s consideration of a full “away-for-the-day” policy.

“I have gone round and round on my own,” Moccia said. “I’ve gone round and round with staff, I’ve talked with teachers, I’ve thought about a lot of things around the logistics.”

Eventually, Moccia said, she realized she had to stop focusing on logistics and return to the board’s role as policymakers.

“You make policy, and we’ll figure out how to implement it,” she told the board.

Moccia pointed board members to a sample National Education Association policy on personal device use in schools, which outlines a bell-to-bell approach, and said she would support the board deliberating from that framework.

Her recommendation does not bind the board. But it marked a notable shift in a conversation that has grown more urgent since April, when district leaders notified families that two students had placed a phone in a Vashon High School restroom stall and recorded other students without their knowledge or consent.

The incident accelerated a review of the district’s cellphone policy, which dates to 2011 — before smartphones became a near-constant part of teenage life.

The local debate is also unfolding as Gov. Bob Ferguson has made school cellphone restrictions a statewide priority. On June 9, Ferguson announced that he will seek legislation requiring K-12 public school students in Washington to keep smartphones, smartwatches and other personal smart devices away from the first bell to the last bell, with narrow exceptions for medical and educational needs.

His office said he plans to release a detailed proposal by Sept. 15, prefile a governor-request bill on Dec. 7 and seek implementation by September 2027.

That state-level push has added another layer to Vashon’s decision: whether to move now, ahead of a possible statewide mandate, or wait and see what the Legislature requires.

But Moccia also cautioned that the state’s attention to phones comes at a time when school districts are facing bleak financial forecasts.

Budget shadows phone debate

“I would ask you wholeheartedly to keep that momentum around lobbying the Legislature for adequate funding for public schools,” Moccia told parents who spoke in favor of stricter phone rules.

She said the district’s budget picture for next year is difficult — and the following year could be worse.

“I appreciate that the governor came out with a statement around cellphones,” Moccia said. “I don’t want to be cynical and believe that was a distraction from the real issue of what the financial picture in our state looks like.”

The district’s own financial picture was laid out later that night by Cassie Zizah, the district’s business and finance director, who presented a proposed 2026-27 budget showing a general fund spending plan of about $30.5 million.

That is up from the district’s approved 2025-26 general fund budget of about $29.3 million. But the problem, Zizah said, is that revenues are not keeping pace with costs: The district expects general fund expenditures to exceed revenues by just over $1 million next year.

The general fund is the district’s main operating fund, used for instruction and regular day-to-day operations. The gap means the district would have to dip into its fund balance — the reserve it uses to maintain cash flow and cover emergencies — unless it can reduce spending.

“A million dollars in a $30 million budget is significant,” Zizah said.

The district has already taken several steps to cut costs.

In March, the school board approved Moccia’s plan to downsize and restructure the district’s administrative leadership team, eliminating 1.6 full-time positions and shifting responsibilities among administrators. Moccia told The Beachcomber at the time that the reorganization would save close to $287,000 in the coming school year.

The district is still projected to end the year with a positive fund balance. But Zizah said the projected ending fund balance of about $2.2 million falls short of the district’s policy requiring at least 27.5 days of cash on hand, which would require about $2.5 million.

“We are really in a vulnerable spot with our finances,” Zizah said.

The reasons are familiar to many public school districts: declining enrollment, rising insurance costs, increasing utility costs and state funding that has not kept pace with expenses. Zizah said the district’s risk pool premium increased by 38%, while utilities are projected to rise between 7% and 15%.

Moccia said the district has already reduced administrative staffing by more than 2.5 positions, teaching staff by more than two positions and classified staff hours by 37.5 hours across about 30 employees.

A partial hiring freeze is also in place, and some positions left vacant by resignations have not been filled as the district tries to recapture unspent funds.

The district is also looking to reduce transportation costs by restructuring bus service. Moccia said the district pays First Student about $1.6 million for bus service, even as buses run at about 40% capacity.

A proposal would reduce general education routes from eight to six, save about $146,000, lower expected transportation costs to about $1.45 million and affect four bus driver jobs, she said. Some bus stops, field trips and sports trips could also be affected. Students with disabilities who require transportation would still receive it.

“It doesn’t meet what our actual deficit is, but it helps,” Moccia said.

The change could alter some bus stops and affect field trip or sports trip scheduling if fewer drivers are available. The district would also reduce the number of spare drivers on hand from two to one.

The reduction would apply to general education routes, Moccia said. Students with disabilities who require transportation would still receive it.

“This is not a cliff that we didn’t see,” Moccia said. “It’s just bigger than we thought.”

The budget is relevant to the phone debate because a stricter policy will require enforcement — and enforcement requires adult time, Moccia said.

Board Chair Juniper Rogneby, who has said she has gone back and forth on the issue, has repeatedly warned that a bell-to-bell policy would not be free.

“There’s no extra supervision hours,” Rogneby said June 11. “There’s no extra ability to manage whatever we end up doing, and I think we all agree we don’t want it to be on the backs of teachers.”

At the board’s May 28 meeting, Rogneby said parents have tools available to restrict their children’s phones during school hours. She said she has used those tools with her own child.

“I don’t think it is the job of educators or administrators to manage that for our children,” she said.

That view has put Rogneby in the complicated position of acknowledging the harm phones can cause while questioning whether the district has the staffing, money or capacity to become the primary enforcer of family phone rules.

Still, many parents and community members who spoke June 11 said the district should act.

Push for action

Per Lars Blomgren, a longtime teacher and wrestling coach who has split time between McMurray and the high school, said he will work only at McMurray next year — a change he said shows how much the issue matters to him.

“McMurray doesn’t come without challenges, but one challenge they don’t have is their phones,” Blomgren said. “During break and lunch kids are shooting pool, playing pingpong, shooting hoops and being kids.”

At Vashon High School, he said, the current policy leaves the door “slightly open.”

“Phones are within reach,” Blomgren said. “Maybe they are listening to music, maybe they need their phone for a calculator, maybe their Chromebook isn’t charged, they might have a burner phone when they go to the bathroom.”

Breaks and lunch at the high school, he said, are largely spent scrolling.

“The current policy at VHS is exhausting as a teacher,” Blomgren said. “We pick our battles as teachers, and just reminding kids continually to put their phones away is very tiresome.”

Hannah Harper, a parent of a Chautauqua Elementary School student and a nurse at Neighborcare Health at Vashon, said she has seen more students come to the clinic with anxiety, depression, sleep issues, self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

“I have seen firsthand the negative impact of cellphones and social media on our students’ developing brains and bodies,” Harper said. “I have also experienced how it’s actually getting harder and more complex to treat anxiety and depression in our teens.”

Erin Simmons read a statement on behalf of the parent of a freshman who was recorded in the restroom incident. Simmons said the parent was in the room but was not speaking publicly because of the privacy violation her child had already experienced.

“My daughter’s sense of safety at VHS was shattered in seconds by a device that has no place in a private space like a bathroom,” the parent’s statement said.

The student, the statement said, was lucky another student found the phone and brought it to the office before the video was distributed.

“While I appreciate the district’s ‘off and away’ policy at VHS, it simply isn’t enough,” the statement said. “Relying on teachers and staff to monitor device usage is an impossible task.”

Chrissy Blair, a chiropractor who specializes in pediatric work and volunteers at McMurray and Chautauqua, said she has seen a shift in children’s physical health over the past two decades.

“I have watched the quiet but significant shift in the physical health of the children I treat,” Blair said, adding that the rise of smartphones has corresponded with more posture problems, headaches and musculoskeletal issues among children.

But the board has also heard significant concerns about adopting a one-size-fits-all district policy, especially at the high school.

Christopher Stone, president of the Vashon Education Association and a teacher at the high school, said teachers understand the harm phones can cause, but urged the board to allow each building to develop procedures that work for its students.

“When teachers can work with building administrators, policies can be tailored, and the focus can remain on teaching and learning,” Stone said.

Andrew Casad, a Vashon parent and teacher at O’Dea High School in Seattle, urged the board to consider a building-based approach rather than a districtwide ban.

At O’Dea, he said, students place phones in numbered pockets at the start of each class — a policy that has worked because it is consistent across classrooms and was developed with student input.

“We want a distraction-free environment where our students can learn,” Casad said. But, he asked, is the district creating external control, “rather than equipping our students to make good decisions about how they’re going to interact with their tech?”

Sarah Powell, a Spanish teacher at VHS, said the high school has already undergone a major shift since tightening its classroom phone policy in 2023.

“The transformation that we’ve had in the last three years at the high school has been absolutely incredible,” Powell said.

Still, Powell said students need to learn how to manage their phones before they leave high school, and teachers should not be left holding the burden — or students’ expensive devices.

And whatever the board decides, she said, teachers should not be left holding the burden — or students’ expensive devices.

“I don’t want somebody’s $1,000 iPhone,” Powell said. “I do not want 30 of them in pockets on the door where something could happen. I don’t want to have to regulate it.”

The data before the board has not pointed neatly in one direction.

At a May forum at the high school, student board representatives Hazel Nielsen and Henry Hughes reported that 230 of about 500 high school students responded to a survey they sent to students in grades 9-12. More than 90% of those respondents opposed a bell-to-bell policy at the high school.

Students cited concerns about safety, emergencies, contacting parents, transportation, after-school jobs and athletics. Some also said learning to manage technology is part of becoming an adult.

Parents, however, have largely pushed in the opposite direction. At the May 28 board meeting, board members said they had received 27 letters in support of an away-for-the-day policy and two in support of an iteration of the current policy.

Moccia also pointed out a gap between parents’ perceptions and teacher survey responses.

When teachers were asked to what extent cellphones currently interfere with student engagement and learning in their classrooms, 11% said not at all, 52% said slightly and 22% said moderately, Moccia said.

Parents, by contrast, believed teachers were seeing significant interruption about 85% of the time, Moccia said.

Board member River Branch said she read the teacher feedback differently, especially when looking at which policies teachers said would create the most effective learning environment.

Branch said she saw meaningful support among high school teachers for a bell-to-bell policy, even if teachers were not unanimous.

Branch also acknowledged the workload question. In her view, she said, a stricter policy could eventually reduce teacher workload by taking phone-by-phone enforcement out of the classroom. But she also said it would likely increase the burden on administrators — at a time when the district has already cut administrative staffing.

The budget discussion that same night brought those trade-offs into sharp relief.

Zizah said the district receives about $11,089 in state funding per enrolled student, including commuters, while spending about $18,564 per student. The difference is covered by the district’s local levy and other revenue sources.

The local levy is the district’s second-largest revenue source, bringing in about $6 million, or roughly 19.5% of budgeted resources. Federal funding accounts for about 3%.

Moccia said the Vashon Schools Foundation raised about $350,000, which helped mitigate some impacts.

“We can’t ask them to raise $2 million, right?” Moccia said.

Several classified staff members and paraeducators also spoke about the human consequences of the budget cuts.

One paraeducator said she resigned because her job did not pay a living wage.

“My monthly salary does not even pay my rent,” she said.

Heather Baldwin, a special education paraeducator at Chautauqua who said she has worked in the district for nearly 10 years, said she recently experienced a partial layoff through reduced hours.

Baldwin said paraeducators working with students with the highest needs require time to meet with supervising teachers, receive materials and prepare for students. Reducing hours, she said, does not reduce the work.

“We have been working hard for you and for your most vulnerable students for years and years,” Baldwin told the board. “You’re letting us down.”

The board is expected to take up both the budget and cellphone policy again June 25, with a possible budget extension vote to follow in July.

That shared timeline has made the cellphone debate harder to separate from the district’s finances. By the end of the June 11 meeting, the question before the board had become larger than whether phones distract students.

What comes next

The June 25 vote is not likely to end the debate. If the board adopts an away-for-the-day policy, the district will still need to decide how phones will be collected or stored, how exceptions will work, how emergencies will be handled and who will enforce the rules.

If the board stops short of a full ban, it will still face pressure from parents, staff and the state to show that the current policy can protect students’ attention, privacy and safety.

“We will do whatever the board directs us to do with our very best effort,” Moccia said. “I just expect that the board’s going to do this eyes wide open, because it is not without a cost.”