With the new school year rolling in, Team Duval has unveiled a suite of policies that will shift the landscape of daily life for students and staff in Duval County Public Schools starting this 2025-2026 academic year. In an announcement published last week, the district laid out several key updates impacting everything from phone usage to lunchtime proceedings.
One of the most noticeable changes is the elimination of early release days, a tool once used to bolster staff development. Instead, "employee in-service" days will now grant teachers and staff dedicated blocks of time for professional growth, as per the Duval County Public Schools' statement. Switching gears to student nutrition, non-Community Eligibility Provision schools in the district are tightening policies on free lunches. Eligible families must now navigate an application process, available in English and Spanish, with a 30-day interim where lunches will be provided at no cost.
In a bid to ratchet up safety, secondary students can no longer dart off-campus for their midday meal, nor can they summon their lunch through services like DoorDash. However, parents and guardians retain a pass to enjoy a school-side meal with their offspring.
Disciplinary actions are also getting a tweak. Under updated conduct rules, any student caught up in a fight will face suspension from extracurricular activities, with the stakes escalating after each incident. After a first fight, students will be inextricably linked with a 30-day extracurricular timeout and an SOS program for redemption, as outlined by the district. Subsequently, a second fight ramps up to a 90-day banishment, with a third potentially steering a student toward alternative schooling.
Adhering to HB 1105, Duval's new cell phone policy zeroes in on PreK to 8th-grade scholars, forbidding the in-school use of phones and now smartwatches, too. Keeping with technology, a new communication enhancement allows parents to receive text alerts whenever a teacher sends out a message through the Rooms function in Thrillshare.
High school dismissal times across the district will get snipped by 15 minutes, a detail falling in line with previously announced scheduling revisions. Transportation, meanwhile, requires a layer of pre-planning, as bus-riding students must enroll through an online system, bolstered by informative videos. This system feeds into an app, Edulog, that lets registered parents trace their child's bus in real-time.
