NYS school cellphone ban: Some Long Island educators say rollout could pose logistical challenge

The aha moment for Kristian Blum DeRosa came when she was interrupted by her daughter, then a kindergartener, while watching a clip of an influencer’s child on Instagram. 

Her daughter asked who she was watching and DeRosa thought: “Why am I watching a stranger’s child when my daughter is sitting right next to me?”

DeRosa said she deleted the social media app from her phone then and there. Now with her daughter in first grade in the Garden City school district, the mother of two said she was glad to hear that Gov. Kathy Hochul's ban on smartphones in school, intended to minimize distraction, was approved as part of the state budget adopted in May. 

The so-called bell-to-bell ban, which begins in September, will apply to internet-enabled devices such as smartphones, smartwatches and tablets for the entire school day. Students can still use cellphones without internet capability and internet-connected devices like Chromebooks as part of instruction.

“I'm very relieved that this is going to be the new norm,” DeRosa said.

In Long Island schools, a growing number of districts already have policies in place to limit smartphone access during instructional hours. Most, however, are not as extensive as the governor’s ban.

Island educators interviewed by Newsday overall agreed with the intent behind the ban — to improve learning and student mental health — but some expressed concern over the short timeframe schools have to implement it.

“We can flip the switch Sept. 1 and say: ‘OK, no more cellphones,’ ” said Lars Clemensen, superintendent for Hampton Bays schools. “But changing the culture and [getting to] the acceptance that that's important is going to take time.”

Bob Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association, said many districts are engaging stakeholders in discussions over how to implement the new rule. That process will vary, depending on the size of the district and their existing policies, he said.

“The conversation is going to be different in Brentwood than in Montauk,” he said.

Logistical challenges

The state ban came with exemptions for students with medical and other needs, such as using the phone for translation or family emergencies. School officials said that will require a tricky balancing act.

“How do we balance that within a classroom with a 13-year-old who has an exemption and then five other 13-year-olds that say: ‘That's not fair?’ ” said Clemensen, who also serves as president of New York State Council of School Superintendents.

Dafny Irizarry, president of the Long Island Latino Teachers Association, said immigrant students and English language learners use their phone to help them learn. Older students could also use the devices to coordinate jobs or childcare responsibilities for younger siblings.

“I wonder how prepared the school districts that serve immigrant students [will be] to accommodate all these caveats?” she said.

School leaders said they expect the implementation to be a logistical challenge, especially for high schools with a large enrollment, where students are more likely to push back.

“Their devices are with them at all times. They've been used to that,” Garden City schools Superintendent Kusum Sinha said. “There'll be a shift for them.”

When asked about educators’ concerns regarding the tight timeframe, the governor’s office responded in an email that in part said “school districts have the flexibility to develop their own policy to provide a distraction-free learning environment that best fits their needs.”

Hochul’s office has said schools can craft their own plans for how to store smartphones during the school day.

'The right to distract themselves'

Some also took issue with the state’s blanket approach, which they argue does not take into account students’ developmental stage.

Alicia Zhang, 18, a senior at Garden City High school with two younger sisters, said she agreed with the bell-to-bell ban for middle schools and younger grades but considered it “a little extreme” for older students.

“High schoolers have a little more responsibility and they're able to exercise that control,” she said. “I feel like [high school] students should get the autonomy to have some access to their phones” in between classes and during free periods.

Such practice would prepare them for adulthood, she said.

“It encourages your own self-control,” she said. “That mimics what you're going to have to do in college, like having your phone and being able to put it down and use it for the right reasons.”

Clemensen raised a similar point, noting that an 18-year-old high school senior could be barred from using a smartphone in school but could enlist in the military.

“A third grader doesn't need a device. A middle schooler doesn't need a device,” he said. “But as you get to be 17 and 18 years old, can we trust students and develop in them the discipline and the self-regulation to use their device, and the next month when they're graduated and out in the world, they could have a weapon in the military?”

Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history of education at the University of Pennsylvania, said he used to allow smartphones in his classroom, considering his college-level students are adults: “They can vote in elections. They can die in wars. … And they have the right to distract themselves.”

But Zimmerman said his thinking changed after he read research showing that the student sitting near someone on a laptop is distracted, too. He has since banned laptops and phones in his classroom, making exceptions only for students that need such devices due to a learning disability.

“You may have the right to distract yourself,” he said. “But you have no right, zero right, to distract somebody else.”

'Can't compete with the phones'

Michael Cestaro, principal of Locust Valley Middle School, agreed.

Doing the math on what a cellphone-induced distraction costs a classroom, he said, "The teacher  stops  the lesson. They redirect the child to put it back in their pocket. If that's a minute, or if it's three minutes every day because it's three different kids, times 180 days … we could be losing hours every year.”

Since implementing a bell-to-bell ban in his school two years ago, Cestaro said teachers have reported being able to cover more instructional material. There have also been fewer suspensions due to cellphone misuse, he said.

In Locust Valley, smartphones are currently prohibited in grades K-8 and high schoolers may use phones during certain free periods. 

“Our teachers do want their classrooms back. They love children. They're passionate about their craft, and they can't compete with the phones," schools Superintendent Kristen Turnow said.

Romy Bennett, president of the Locust Valley School Employees Association and a library media specialist at the middle school, was part of a book club that recently read “The Anxious Generation.” The book’s author, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, linked the rise of smartphone and social media use to worsening adolescent mental health.

During a recent book club discussion, Bennett told her fellow book club members that students used to crash into one another when passing in the hallways because their eyes were glued to their phones.

“One of the beautiful things, I think, about this cellphone ban is that now you have that opportunity in the cafeterias and in the hallways where they have no choice but to interact,” she said.

Krystina Tomlinson, a Locust Valley school board trustee and a mom of an eighth-grade boy, said she felt a bit of unease when the middle school first rolled out their smartphone policy. Soon enough though, she realized she had to adjust her own need for instant gratification.

“It's raining. I need to know right this second if he has practice or not,” she recalled of the moment when she caught herself.

But then, she said it dawned on her: “I can wait till 3 o'clock to know if he has practice or not.”

By Dandan Zou

dandan.zou@newsday.com@DandanZou

Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.