New York State is moving forward with a controversial ban on cellphones and smart devices in public schools for the upcoming school year. Reactions from New York City students and parents are a mixed bag, but administrators are behind it.
Many assumed that it would be impossible to implement a statewide cellphone ban, especially since officials would have to contend with New York City’s public school system — the nation’s largest at more than 1 million students.
Gov. Kathy Hochul began adamantly pushing for a ban last year. She finally succeeded in allocating $13.5 million — including $4.3 million to New York City — toward implementation of the ban and storage security in the state’s budget this year, as opposed to passing more-traditional legislation. The ban on phones and devices goes into effect for the 2025 to 2026 school year this fall. It applies to grades K–12 for all public and charter schools for the entire school day, including classroom time, lunch, and study hall periods.
DeNora Getachew, CEO of DoSomething.org, said that more than anything, young people her organization works with want their voices heard and to be considered when it comes to implementation of school policies that affect them. As a mom of two, she said that there’s a generation of kids who were thrust into the digital age prematurely because of the COVID pandemic and educators are playing catch up with how to balance that technology to negate “learning loss and distractions” in schools.
National data shows student performance dropped significantly in 2022 from 2019, attributed to the pandemic, but New York had even greater declines in fourth-grade math and reading scores across the board, reported the state comptroller’s office.
Getachew doesn’t think educators and administrators want people to be resistant; they just want students to thrive like other states that have now made the decision to regulate tech in schools. There’s some wiggle room for schools to develop their own plans for storing smartphones during the day.
“I feel like the cellphone ban will be a double-edged sword for students: The obvious safety concern arises time and time again, as well as the concept of phones being a force of good,” said Soumik Dey, 16, who attends Pace High School. His school already has a phone-free policy and uses Yondr, or a lockable pouch. He said the New York City Department of Education (DOE) “can do its worst: Students will always find a way to spite the grownups.”
Dey got his first phone around eighth grade, and used it primarily for entertainment and video games. He graduated to a government-issued phone that only texted his parents in ninth grade, and then an iPhone that his parents and sibling can use to track his location. Since there’s a ban in place at his school, Dey said he and his friends use it when they can bypass the Yondr pouch system during leisure times. He knows that certain Mac laptops can mirror a phone screen onto the laptop itself, which circumvents internet security tools the education department uses like Securly and Zscaler.
“I would say I use my phone often when helping me with homework, but only in math. The calculator app and Desmos website, in particular, have proven to be indispensable resources for that,” said Dey. “For my other subjects, I tend to understand the materials already, or it is all digital and we all know editing Google Docs on mobile is hell … but on the off chance, I am too lazy or on the move, I use my phone to look things up.”
In keeping with the state mandates, Mayor Eric Adams and the city’s Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos updated the DOE’s Chancellor’s Regulation A-413, which has a subsection that addresses its Cell Phone and Electronic Device Policy. Adams allocated $25 million to help with implementation of the policy. The change was approved by the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) on July 23, although non-voting student members who testified were opposed.
Hawaou Kobeogo, a 16-year-old attending Bronx River High School, said she thinks that students will benefit from the ban on cellphones. Her high school had also implemented a no-cellphone policy. She got her first phone when she was 11, during the COVID crisis. She mainly used it for research because the websites she went to weren’t blocked, but definitely noticed that she socialized and paid less attention in middle school.
“When I went from carrying my phone around all the time during the school day in middle school to not doing so, I felt uneasy,” said Kobeogo. “I observed myself and my classmates not paying attention to the task or the teacher in front of us when phones were permitted in middle school. In addition, I’ve witnessed numerous instances of my peers misbehaving when teachers confiscated their phones for inappropriate usage in class. Honestly, the utilization of allowing phones in class really impacted our learning habits and abilities.”
Her school takes students’ phones away in the morning and puts them in a bubble bag system for the day. She thinks it’ll be hard for everyone to adjust to the ban. “It will also be difficult for the transition to happen because we are all used to technology, and most school stuff, like homework and classwork, is online. It is odd to try to eliminate the technology that is a big part of society today,” said Kobeogo.
Safety seems to be a major concern for parents, as far as the ban is concerned.
“Not happy with it at all. Some kids are latchkey kids. Especially with what’s going on in the world, how do I know my kid is safe?,” said Lawanda Joyner, a Harlem mother who works in city child protective services. Her eight-year-old, Eryn, is going to the third grade in a public school that already has a ban in place. In her experience, the education department is hard to get in touch with and doesn’t always communicate quickly, so she has the principal’s cellphone number.
Safety and equitable access to technology are the main concerns of Thomas Sheppard, the former elected Community Education Council (CEC) Presidents member and Bronx CEC Presidents member on the city’s Panel for Education Policy (PEP). He has worked with Apple Inc. since 2009, and authored a resolution this year that countered the cellphone ban but was shot down. A father of six, he has a 14-year-old son who is heading into 10th grade.
“The reason we put phones in kids’ hands is for safety,” said Sheppard. “Given the world we live in, given that things can and will go wrong, we give them phones for safety and security reasons and for us to feel safe. The ban removes that feeling.”
Sheppard said it’s already hard for parents to see how students are treated or experiencing school in real time. The ban limits the transparency that recordings provide. He also pointed out that a “sizable” population of the school community are immigrants, and not having the capacity to communicate in case they interact with law enforcement is alarming.
As someone who has developed digital classroom pilots, Sheppard thinks there’s a more effective way to integrate tech into the classroom. “If you are thoughtful about apps and training for teachers and students and parents, then you can be really effective at using tech as a tool. We haven’t really done that,” said Sheppard. “The DOE calls the shots. These conversations go into contracts with vendors, data privacy and security, and the use of AI.”
Kris Astle, SMART Technologies’ education strategist, said she has implemented a cellphone ban at the dinner table with her own children. In a classroom setting, she said phones and social media can provide “a little dopamine rush” that is certainly distracting.
“So it’s this huge mixed bag … The positives … If we take cellphones out of the classroom, then we’ve got students who are more likely to talk to each other, to engage in the learning, to be fully focused on the task, and that’s a huge win,” said Astle. “But then, on the other hand, if we think about the dynamics of our classrooms and the diversity of our students … it’s hard to say what the right answer is. The right answer is 100 percent that we need to work on a kind of digital citizenship and teach students responsible use of devices.”
The state clarified that students would still be allowed to have simple cellphones without internet access, as well as “internet-enabled devices” provided by their schools. Schools will be required to provide at least one method for families to contact kids in case of an emergency and a secure way to store devices. There are also some exemptions to the ban for medical reasons, students responsible for a sibling, a device for educational purposes like translation services, or Individual Education Program (IED) students.
If students violate the ban, they can be put in detention or banned from school activities and clubs. Suspensions aren’t allowed, according to state law.
“Our kids are in school to learn, but, too often, cellphones are used in manners that are distracting, degrading, and dangerous to our young people,” said Mayor Adams. “The state cellphone ban was the first step in putting our kids back on track to learn and thrive in safe, nurturing environments, and this new cellphone policy is the next step in ensuring students are given the best shot to succeed in school.”
I think making classes cellphone-free could really help students focus more and learn better. Phones can be a big distraction, and it’s easy to lose track of what’s going on in class. But I also think schools should give students short breaks to check messages so they don’t feel too stressed. Teachers could use that time to remind everyone about healthy phone habits. It’s all about balance — less phone use during lessons, but not banning them completely.