Today’s first day back in school for New York City public school kids is always a happy one to see friends again and a sad one to be leaving behind summer break, but today’s first day is the first day without any smartphones or other distracting electronic devices. Kids may be sad at first without their phones, but it will turn out to be happy for everyone.
On behalf of upwards of a million NYC students, their teachers and their parents, we thank Gov. Hochul for powering through her statewide bell-to-bell ban into law earlier this year. Every public school from the eastern tip of Long Island to Hochul’s native Buffalo is required to have a policy forbidding these ubiquitous machines from classrooms and hallways and lockers.
The statute, Education Law §2803, also covers “homeroom periods, lunch, recess, study halls, and passing time.” No phones, anytime, anywhere. And it’s not just smartphones.
Says a memo from David Newman, principal of Brooklyn Tech, which with close to 6,000 students in its Fort Greene building, is the largest school in the United States: “Examples of such devices include cell phones, smartphones, smartwatches, laptops, tablets, iPads, and portable music and entertainment systems.”
The state law does allow “non-internet-enabled devices such as cellular phones or other communication devices not capable of connecting to the internet or enabling the user to access content on the internet.”
As to when, Newman writes: “Students will not be permitted to use or access their personal internet-enabled electronic devices upon arrival at school until the end of the school day. The school day is defined as the period from the moment students enter the school building until the last class of the day ends, including during lunch, passing between classes, and bathroom breaks. The school day ends at 3:35 p.m.”
Unable to collect 6,000 smartphones each morning and return 6,000 smartphones each afternoon to the correct owners, Tech has instead issued each pupil a velcro pouch in which the phone must remain in during the whole school day. The students keep the pouch in their backpack or locker. Lose a pouch and you’ll have to buy a new one for 10 bucks.
Our only qualm about the new bell-to-bell law is that it took until now to implement it. For years, different schools had different policies toward phones, but now, with considerable evidence of the distracting nature of the device, a universal ban is the correct policy.
If there is a family emergency, mom and dad can call the school office, like they did for 100 years before smartphones, to have the student contacted. Doctor appointments and other special arrangements can still be made, as they were before smartphones. Students will still be using computers and the internet during the school day, but for school work.
The benefits are that students can focus on school while in school and on what their teachers are teaching. And beyond the classroom, there are also gains: At lunch starting today, students will have to actually talk to each other at their table, instead of staring into their palms. The same is true in the hallways between classes: Let’s hear the kids yakking instead of typing.
As for teachers, not only won’t they have to compete with enticing videos and texts for student attention, they won’t have to act as smartphone cops, as there won’t be any smartphones in use.
Again, thank you, Gov. Hochul.
