New York City schools are banning cellphones and electronic devices beginning in the upcoming 2025-2026 school year. This move sets up the country’s largest school system to be in compliance with state legislation passed earlier this year.
The cellphone and electronic device policy states students are not allowed to use their personal internet-enabled electronic devices during the school day in instructional classes and during non-instructional time such as “homeroom periods, lunch, recess, and study hall sessions.”
Besides cellphones, the ban also includes “laptops, tablets, and portable music and entertainment systems” during the school day on school property. Though students are allowed to bring their devices heading to and from school, each school must offer at least one way to store students’ devices, whether it be school-assigned lockers or cellphone pouches.
While the NYC Department of Education has a general policy, each school will establish its own written guidance. The ban does not apply to after-school activities, but it is up to each school to decide if it wants to extend the ban beyond the school day. Schools are also required to inform parents and students about the new policy at the beginning of the school year.
A little over half of U.S. states have a required policy on cellphone usage in classrooms. Cellphone distraction was cited as a major issue among students in class by 72% of teachers, according to the Pew Research Center. Jessica DiCarlo, a substitute school teacher in Queens who’s set to teach full time at P.S. 169 Bay Terrace in the fall, is one of those teachers. DiCarlo said she sees phones and other devices like iPads as “a distraction” in her classes.
The DOE loans tablets, either iPads and Chromebooks, to students for educational purposes with a limited preset number of education apps approved to be downloaded by the DOE. And all New York City public school students are also supposed to have access to a Google Classroom and Microsoft Office 365 account, according to the NYC DOE website.
There are some other exceptions to the cellphone ban, such as students with certain medical conditions, translation needs, and those who require them in an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or 504 Plan.
Even with the DOE-issued tablets aimed to facilitate classwork on platforms like Google Classroom, DiCarlo notes her students in the past have misused the devices for recreational purposes.
“But they have their phones and their iPads, and they make it say words that the kids find funny out loud to distract the class while the class is quiet,” she said. “So their phone or iPad will just say the word, and everybody laughs, and then everyone also tries to do it on their technology, and it distracts the entire class, and it’s kind of hard because they rely so much on the technology.”
NYC public school students will still have access to their DOE-issued tablets as the ban only applies to personal electronic devices.
“It’s not like you can really take it away from them if they do that, because they still have to get their work done. So it’s kind of like a lose-lose,” DiCarlo added. “Everyone either gets distracted or the kid isn’t able to do the work that they’re supposed to do, and you can’t avoid Google. They kind of have to use it [for class assignments].”
Cellphone usage in class halts youth’s socio-emotional development, noted Julie Scelfo, founder and executive director of Moms Against Media Addiction, an organization advocating for the ban of cellphone usage in schools.
“Sure, kids have always had moments of boredom or wanting to contact parents, but part of the school experience is learning to tolerate frustration. Getting immediate gratification every time you have an impulse or desire is not healthy and does not prepare you well to navigate the harder things in life,” she said. “Part of becoming a student — and an emotionally well-regulated adult — is learning how to tolerate difficult feelings, and school is one of the primary venues where children learn how to behave appropriately.”
Parents, of course, want to know: What if there’s an emergency?
“There’s a group of kids that use their phones way too much,” acknowledged Flaviana Linares, a mom of three and member of Make the Road New York’s Parents in Action Committee. She said the phone ban makes students more focused in class but points out the downsides.
“As a mother, one of the big concerns is those unfortunate events” such as school shootings, a big concern for her since her youngest child is still in high school. “Whenever an event happens we need the children to respond to us quickly.”
Her child’s high school located in Manhattan already takes away students’ phones during the school day and students need permission to go to the office to contact anyone.
Linares added that phones could also function as a tool “to record bullying” as proof so schools could take substantial action over trusting kids’ word for it without any hard evidence.
The Adams administration addressed some of the safety concerns in the policy’s press release saying, “schools will be required to provide at least one method for families to reach their children during the school day in the case of an emergency, provide a secure way to store devices, and annually provide staff and families with information about school-specific policies.”
DiCarlo acknowledges the safety concerns that parents like Linares have but feels like the cellphone ban is a positive since kids “are using them more and earlier.”
“Third [and] fourth graders have their phones and I didn’t have a phone till I was in middle school,” DiCarlo said.
She added:
“It’s not like they shouldn’t have a phone; it shouldn’t be allowed in the schools because they’re so attached to it. And I feel like they need that time to fully focus on school because when they’re out of school, they’re probably using their phone — 24/7. So to have that breather is good, academically, but it’s also good for them and their minds.”
