December 22, 2025

Greetings, BHS students and families! Before we head off, I wanted to provide a few important updates about big work happening at the high school. The first concerns our new reassessment procedures, and the second is to provide some resources for thinking about and talking about our upcoming bell-to-bell phone ban.

Reassessment

After months working with staff, student and parent representatives, and undertaking multiple revisions based on feedback, I'm excited to share that we've finalized a working draft of our new BHS Reassessment Procedures. This document, designed to serve as model language for all our departments, guarantees the following, starting Spring semester (January 12):

• All students will have the opportunity to reassess all summative tasks once;

• Students who reassess will be awarded the grade earned for reassessment -- the higher of the two scores, rather than averaging the two or imposing a cap on what can be earned through reassessment; and

• Teachers will prioritize reassessment support and scheduling for students who have not reached proficiency in one or more assessed standards. 

Departments will now have the opportunity to either adopt the procedure document in its entirety, or to revise some of the logistical elements to be the best fit possible for their content areas and the ways they assess learning. Regardless, the guarantees listed above will be met across the school starting on day one of Spring Semester.

While many BHS teachers were already offering reassessment, eligibility requirements and details varied widely. This procedure offers consistency and clarity for students, families and staff. Establishing reassessment as an expectation and a way we "do school" also ensures that despite setbacks, students will know they have opportunities to relearn, reach that "aha" moment, and earn the grade that best reflects what they know and can do (even if it may take longer, or require more than one try).

Cell Phone Ban: Resources

Despite knowing that Vermont law is requiring all public schools to implement bell-to-bell phone bans, for some students, the cell phone ban feels neither fair nor reasonable. If that's true for you or your student, I'm passing on some resources compiled by the Vermont AOE that shed light on why the ban is so valuable and necessary -- for learning, and for our young people's emotional and psychological wellbeing. Phones have been flooding our schools for years now, meaning that there is plenty of research around the negative and unintended impacts of ubiquitous devices. If you have the time, or want to understand the "why" behind our upcoming phone ban, I encourage you to check out one or more of these recent publications.

• Angela Duckworth and Phones in Focus, a nonpartisan research project supported by the National Governors Association.  Duckworth's early findings show that bell-to-bell policies are the most effective in terms of teacher satisfaction and student compliance.

• Boston Children's Digital Wellness Lab, What the Science Says: Smartphones in  Schools, 2024. This article examines some of the current research around the impacts of cell phone policies in schools and their impact on students.

• Common Sense Media, Constant Companion: A Week in the Life of a Young … Smartphone Use, San Francisco, CA, 2023. This report fills a gap in understanding around how teens actually use their smartphones, combining data from kids' own phones with feedback from the Common Sense Youth Advisory Council.

• Pew Research Center, Challenges in the classroom, report, 2024. Seventy-two percent of high school teachers say students being distracted by their cellphones in the classroom is a major problem. A third of middle school teachers and just six percent of elementary school teachers say the same.

• Vermont Department of Health, Screen Time and Youth Mental Health, 2024. The data cited in this bulletin are from the 2021 Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), which provides point-in-time estimates on mental health outcomes and screen time.

Implementing and maintaining a ban on personal devices will take the whole village. And there is a role for parents in our updated phone ban procedures, since repeated phone collections will result in parents needing to come to the school to pick up the device. But perhaps the best and most proactive role for parents and guardians is to support this messaging -- the what and the why of the new phone rules -- at home. While banning phones will not be an easy lift for any of us, I am grateful for Vermont's leadership on this issue, and believe that it will serve the best interests of our learners and our teachers. 

As we prepare to bid our students farewell until 2026, I'm thinking of all our families and wishing that you enjoy a joyful, restful and healthy holiday season. There's a great deal I'm grateful for as we close out 2025, not least of which is that I get to be part of a vibrant school where educators are always pushing their practice and parents and community members are supportive and invested in the power of education. Thank you.

With warm wishes,

Sabrina Westdijk