New York State's "bell-to-bell" cellphone ban is designed to cut down on distractions while encouraging student's critical thinking and improving social skills. Many school communities have already reported positive results, but the policy has been something of an adjustment.
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Albany City School District Superintendent Joseph Hochreiter says we should remember that smartphones are computers. And that means, going without is a huge change.
"They store our lives, and we learned some things from our own students. For example, that when students do need to contact home, they really need access to their phones because they may not know their home phone number or their mother's cell phone number or older brother's cell phone number or you name it. We're also a very diverse school district, and. Proud of that we have students from 50 different countries speaking 40 different languages, that sometimes our students themselves are translators between families and school personnel," said Hochreiter.
While many early reports about the law included as part of the New York State Fiscal Year 2026 state budget have been positive, families are still adjusting.
David Albert, the New York State School Boards Association's Chief Communications and Marketing Officer, says he is aware of some concerns raised about parents' ability to contact their children in emergencies, as the ban limits direct access.
"There are arrangements made in the legislation for parents to be able to contact their students, so that could be through the principal's office, or it could be through an email address or something. So there are circumstances there, but it is obviously not quite the same as having that text message capability. So it'll be interesting to see as the school year moves on, how the groups react, how parents in particular, react to not having that direct access," Albert said.
NYSSBA had been hoping for more flexibility in the law.
"In our view, we would have perhaps not mandated a bell to bell ban, but maybe allowed the school board to work with the communities to perhaps come up with a different solution, where maybe cell phones would be banned during the school day, for example, like in classes, but not necessarily for recess periods. But we do understand that there is value, of course, in the bell to bell ban, and certainly some districts would have undoubtedly gone in that direction anyway," said Albert.
Still, the law does allow school districts to shape their own strategies for implementing the ban. And that’s meant some districts have been more receptive to technology, such as flip phones, while other districts have a "blanket ban" that includes so-called "compliant" devices.
"Internet-enabled devices" are defined in the law as any smartphone, tablet, smartwatch, or other device capable of connecting to the internet.
Companies like US Mobile, are aiming to take advantage. Company spokesperson Raphael Marchand says the carrier offers what it touts as an unlimited talk and text distraction-free "classroom safe phone" for New York State, a "non-data" model, designed for emergency-only communication without internet access or social media.
"I have a young daughter, and our CEO has our CEO's kids happen to be in a school that already has smartphone bans," Marchand said. "When we saw the news from coming from the State, we knew it was the right opportunity for us to offer these flip phones, which essentially provide talking texts, no data, so they are compliant with the law."
But even with such technology on the market, Albert, with the school boards association, says he’s heard of only a few reported incidents of students trying to circumvent the rules.
Meanwhile, proponents of the ban say they are already noticing benefits.
Dr. Jon Cohen is CEO of TalkSpace, a New York-based telehealth provider of mental health services, that strongly supports the ban. Cohen says social media addiction is a greater threat to teenage health than cigarette smoking.
"The average number of hours that a teenager spends on social media: eight hours a day. That's eight," Cohen emphasized. "And a third of the teenagers are now spending their time on social media essentially all the time. The result of that is significant increase in loneliness, significant increase in lowest low self-esteem, significant increase in unhappiness. 45% of the teenagers now reporting higher anxiety as a result of the social media."
Cohen says other risks with cellphones include cyberbullying, predators, inappropriate challenges via apps like TikTok and SnapChat, access to sexual content and pornography and significant issues related to eating disorders.
Cohen says he fields many questions from parents about how to deal with kids and smartphones, and the potential impact the devices have on young lives.
“One of the greatest important issues is not to have kids or teenagers have their cell phones at night in their bedroom alone. We highly recommend that at that time you could either have the phone charged or removed. The other is to watch and see what the kids are doing, and if there's a change in your child or teenagers affect if you notice that they're more depressed, more withdrawn, is to really reach out and get help. And the final is, there are some communities right now who are having what's called a pledge. It's called not until eighth, meaning their communities are getting together and agreeing not to provide cell phones to their kids until they're in eighth grade,” said Cohen.
