New York state is on track to prohibit students from using their smartphones during the entire school day, a policy Gov. Kathy Hochul and teachers unions have been pushing for months.
Legislative leaders in Albany said this week that lawmakers are largely supportive of banning internet-enabled mobile devices from opening bell to closing bell, rejecting a plea from school administrators to grant them flexibility to allow the devices during non-instructional periods like lunch.
The leaders’ pronouncement is a strong indicator the bell-to-bell restrictions would be included in a final state budget deal, which is due by Tuesday but certain to be late. The exact language of the smartphone restrictions remains under negotiation, though, and some details remain to be hashed out, according to lawmakers.
“ We have heard a lot from a lot of the stakeholders here and I think … the majority of the [Senate] members are more comfortable with a bell-to-bell approach, they really are,” said Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Yonkers Democrat.
Hochul first put her bell-to-bell proposal in her $252 billion state budget proposal in January, touting it as a way to crack down on unnecessary distractions in schools.
Since then, Senate Democrats had raised the idea of only requiring a ban during instructional periods while leaving it up to the school districts to decide whether to go further. Groups representing school boards, superintendents and principals backed that approach, while the teachers’ unions — including the United Federation of Teachers, representing New York City educators — stood behind Hochul’s plan.
Hochul remained steadfast in her initial proposal, which would require students to keep their phones away for the entirety of the day. The state would distribute about $13 million to districts to pay for lockers, pouches or other equipment to keep the phones locked up.
During a youth conference at the state Capitol over the weekend, high-school students voiced mixed opinions about the issue.
Isabella Patuto, a junior at Nyack High School in Rockland County, said it “would be interesting to see a world without phones in our schools.” Given the choice between an all-day ban or one that applies only during instructional periods, she picked the latter.
Josie Rothman, a senior at Nyack, said she would “so appreciate not having access to her phone” during school hours. But she expressed concern about any proposal that would keep her from having it in an emergency situation.
“We had a lockdown drill last week and I wanted to text my mom,” she said. “ I’ve heard from a lot of my friends that we would want to have our phones in the case of an emergency.”
Hochul’s plan would require schools to lay out procedures for parents to contact their children in case of emergency. The governor has also touted support from police officials who say phones can create a distraction in a crisis situation, when students should be listening for direction from their teachers and law enforcement.
Stewart-Cousins said her conference wants to ensure that any legislation properly addresses those safety concerns.
”We just wanna make sure, again, that there are appropriate things in place for those exceptional circumstances that every school will need to address,” she said.
On Thursday, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Bronx Democrat, told reporters that the Assembly, Senate and Hochul were in a “good conceptual place on cell phones.” Earlier in the week, he said most Assembly Democrats preferred a bell-to-bell approach.
But Heastie said the legislative houses were awaiting bill language from Hochul’s office to put the conceptual agreement into place.
Lawmakers left the Capitol as scheduled Thursday and aren’t slated to return until Tuesday, the start of the state’s new fiscal year. They’re expected to approve a short-term spending bill then to ensure the state’s payroll goes out on time.
