School districts across New York state are implementing cellphone bans as the first day of classes begins.
Shenendehowa students filed into the high school this morning for the first day of classes.
But this year’s first day marked a new routine as students in New York must forgo cellphones to comply with a new statewide mandate.
The mandate, included in this year’s state budget, requires school districts to implement a bell-to-bell ban on internet-enabled devices like cellphones, laptops and tablets for the entire school day.
However, the state policy gives districts some leeway on how they decide to implement the mandate.
Some districts will ask their students to simply keep cellphones out of sight and away by any means, while others, like Shenendehowa Central School District in Clifton Park, are requiring that students store devices in designated containers.
“We are excited to have our students back on campus, and to hear the buzz of learning when they join us, so feeling pretty good this morning,” Cecily Wilson-Turner said.
Cecily Wilson-Turner, the school district’s Interim Superintendent, said she hopes the cellphone policy will not be too big of a change.
“We have worked for a long time to ensure our students’ engagement and to ensure that they have the least number of distractions possible when they are in the classrooms,” Wilson-Turner said.
She says while the middle and high schools have slightly different practices, the importance of keeping devices away during instruction time was emphasized across the district last year.
Shenendehowa middle school students must keep their devices in lockers throughout the day, while high school students will be required to put their cellphones in storage containers scattered throughout their teachers’ classrooms.
Governor Kathy Hochul first floated the state policy during this year’s State of the State address in January.
“But to truly free our kids from social media we must give them safe places to simply be kids, it’s just common sense, that’s why I’m launching the unplug and play initiative,” Hochul said.
Eventually, the proposal made its way into the final state budget passed by the legislature in April, becoming law.
In August, districts had to have a published policy on their respective websites.
While the vast majority of schools across the state are complying with the mandate, the policy has been met with both a positive and negative reception.
Critics like David Albert – the Chief Communications and Marketing Officer from the New York State School Boards Association – say the policy is an overreach.
“We felt that school boards are elected by their communities, that they should be empowered to create a policy that makes sense in their community. So, there’s other options besides just bell-to-bell. Bell-to-bell is draconian,” Albert said.
While supporters of the policy, like Natalie McKay – a member of the New York State United Teachers Board of Directors – say the policy will improve students’ social skills.
McKay is also a middle school English teacher at Schoharie Central School District, which was one of the first districts in the state to adopt a bell-to-bell ban on cellphones – Schoharie’s policy has been in place for a few years.
“You’ll walk through our cafeteria and you won’t see any students on cellphones. They’re talking to one another. They’re engaging with one another, we actually, I was walking through a couple months ago and students were playing cards. I mean it’s a completely different way of life, it goes back to when I started teaching in the early 2000s,” McKay said.
Time will tell how parents, students and school faculty will adapt to the new change.
