NY School Administrators Don’t Back Gov. Hochul’s ‘Bell-to-Bell’ Smartphone Ban

New York’s school boards, superintendents and building administrators aren’t on board with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to prohibit students from using their smartphones during the school day, arguing schools need more flexibility.

Hochul’s proposal aims to keep students off their phones from “bell to bell,” meaning all day, including in breaks between classes. But a coalition of school organizations is backing alternative legislation that would let individual districts decide whether to ban phones during non-instructional periods like lunch and homeroom, according to a joint memo issued to New York policymakers in recent days and obtained by Gothamist.

“Our groups … favor the approaches to school smartphone regulation proposed by the Senate and Assembly over that proposed in Governor Hochul’s Executive Budget,” according to the memo.

Among the groups that signed on to the memo are the Conference of Big 5 School Districts, which represents New York City and a handful of the state’s largest districts and the New York State School Boards Association, which represents boards across the state.

Also listed are the state Council of School Superintendents and the School Administrators Association of NYS.

Hochul first proposed bell-to-bell restrictions in January as part of her $252 billion state budget proposal, which also would make $13.5 million available to local school districts to purchase lockers, pouches or other equipment to lock phones away during the day. Like other parts of the budget, a version of the plan would have to be passed by the two houses of the state legislature, which put forth their own budget proposals last week.

The Senate proposed a stripped-down version of the plan that only required school districts to prohibit smartphone usage during instructional periods. The state Assembly left it out of its one-house proposal entirely.

Now, Hochul and the legislature will have to settle on one approach to the issue. Hochul’s bell-to-bell proposal has strong support from the United Federation of Teachers, which represents New York City teachers and New York State United Teachers, an umbrella group of unions across the state.

Speaking to reporters at the Capitol last week, the governor made clear she was going to continue fighting for her approach, which she said is necessary to fight the distraction that smartphones and other internet-enabled mobile devices impose.

She said it would be “wildly, wildly distracting” for students to have access to their phones during some portions of the day and not others and it would force teachers to be the “enforcers.”

“I’m not going to compromise our children’s health,” Hochul said. “And that means I am fighting for a full, all-day-long, bell-to-bell, distraction-free environment.”

In its joint memo, the school groups made clear they support the approach outlined in the Senate’s budget proposal, or a separate bill proposed by Assembly Education Committee Chair Michael Benedetto, a Bronx Democrat, which would give school districts wide latitude to craft their phone policies.

The organizations commended Hochul for bringing attention to the issue and for engaging with them on it. But they wrote that excessive internet use is an issue outside of school, too and that schools could help students learn how to responsibly use their smartphones.

“One way we can is through local policies which allow at least some students — those in upper grades, for example — to learn to make decisions about when and how they engage with the internet while in school but out of class,” the memo reads.

This leaves the groups at odds with the influential teachers’ unions. Hundreds of New York City teachers and parents traveled to Albany last week as part of the city teachers union’s annual lobby day at the Capitol, where they made clear they prefer the governor’s bell-to-bell proposal.

“We want children to be free of their cellphone during the school day,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew told Gothamist. “Fine, bring the phone to school, leave the school with your phone. But during the day? No access.”

The state budget is due before April 1, the start of the state’s fiscal year.

Story by Jon Campbell/New York Public News Network

Jon Campbell covers the New York State Capitol for WNYC and Gothamist. Prior to that, he covered the Capitol for more than a decade for the USA TODAY Network

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