NYC Schools Silence Phone Use

Outside a high school in lower Manhattan on a Thursday morning, students spend the last minutes before first period with their phones. Ninth grader Max F. sits on the stoop across from his school, sending a few quick text messages.

“I’m not a fan of the ban," he said. "I can’t lie.”

Max attends the High School for Health Professions and Human Services. He said students have to place their devices in phone-locking Yondr pouches as soon as they enter the building. Administrators don't give the students their phones back until the end of the school day at 2:40 p.m.

As a new school term is underway, New York students are getting used to this new policy. Last spring, Governor Kathy Hochul announced she would be implementing a “bell to bell” ban on student smartphones in all New York public schools. Three weeks into the school year, the mandate has some teachers rejoicing and some students resistant.

Even though Max isn’t totally on board with the new rules, he said he can see some positive changes.

“I’ve realized in classrooms that [the ban] is actually working,” he said.

Teachers are also seeing the differences. Laura Dewitt is an English teacher at the Urban Assembly School of Global Commerce in Harlem. She said the mandate has been a gamechanger. Her school had restrictions on personal devices in the classroom in past years, but she said enforcement still fell on teachers.

“As engaging as I could make a lesson, I can't compete with all of TikTok or all of YouTube,” Dewitt explained. “I honestly had a student tell me one time, ‘I'm eating my pancakes and watching my show, miss.’”

Dewitt estimated that the new policy cut back on classroom management issues by 80 percent and said that statewide mandate and funding has made a major difference this year.

Governor Hochul included the ban in this year’s fiscal budget. The mandate allotted $4 million dollars of state money in addition to $25 million of city funding for public schools.

According to the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the funding was distributed to schools on a per student basis and allowed each school to create their own system. The New York state union pushed lawmakers to implement the policy in a way that educators would not be responsible for device collection or enforcement.

Maggie Joyce is an elementary school teacher at P.S. 63 in the Bronx. She said  that she appreciates not being burdened with enforcing the ban. Her school designated a staff member to oversee device collection at the start of each day and secure the items in personal lockers.

Even though many of her young students do not have cell phones yet, Joyce said children still benefit from the policy.

“We realize we're setting a new norm,” she said. “The norm now is that you don't have your cell phone in class, and if you did sneak it in class, you're certainly not gonna take it out and get caught with it.”

Max F. said that’s exactly what’s happening. He said kids do still find a way to sneak their phones into school, but the threat of having them confiscated keeps students from using them during class.

“At least if the kids are using their phones, they're not using them in the classroom,” he said. “They're actually learning and only using their phones during a break or if they’re at lunch.”

The Department of Education has not provided metrics to measure the program’s success, but said that student well-being is the policy’s main priority.

Harlem High School teacher Laura Dewitt said she’s already seeing the benefits. Her students are more engaged now that they have one less way to ignore lessons.

One month into the ban, students are beginning to see the tradeoff. Less scrolling, maybe, but more learning.

This story ran on the What’s What podcast from WFUV on Wednesday, September 23, 2025.