New York State will require “bell-to-bell” smartphone restriction in all public and charter kindergarten-through-12th-grade schools starting in the 2025-26 school year, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office announced on Tuesday.
“New York was the first state to target addictive social media feeds and now we’re the largest state to restrict smartphones in schools throughout the entire school day,” Governor Hochul said in a press release. “I know our young people succeed when they’re learning and growing, not clicking and scrolling, and that’s why New York continues to lead the nation on protecting our kids in the digital age.”
The 2026 state budget allocates $13.5 million for schools that need help with phone storage during the school day.
The restriction extends to other internet-enabled devices and is also to be implemented at board of cooperative educational services campuses. Adam Fine, superintendent of the East Hampton School District, is largely supportive of the policy itself but is critical of the approach that the governor took in establishing it. “As an educator, I am in agreement that social media is a distraction to learning and adolescent development,” he said by email yesterday morning, “however, the one-size-fits-all approach taken by the governor and the Legislature with this directive should have been a local decision, as every community has unique needs.”
He said that he is “concerned about the budgetary and supervisory impacts of this new policy.” Be that as it may, the East Hampton School District will be working with stakeholders over the coming months to develop a policy that both works for the district and complies with the governor’s new restrictions.
According to the press release the policy will restrict all unsanctioned smartphone use in the classroom as well as during lunch and study hall periods. Additionally, schools will be required to provide parents a way to contact their children during the day. School districts are allowed to create their own policies but the state stipulates that teachers, parents, and students should have input on them.
There are some loopholes outlined by the press release including allowing students to use phones that don’t connect to the internet and devices provided to students by the school, such as Chromebooks. And there are exemptions for students who may need an internet-enabled device for medical purposes, students with individualized education programs, or who need smartphones for “legitimate purposes” such as translation and family caregiving.
East Hampton and many schools on the South Fork have similar policies in place already to limit or restrict smartphone access during the school day.
Students at the Pierson Middle and High School in Sag Harbor, for instance, have since 2023 been storing their phones in pouches made by a company called Yondr during the school day.
Jeff Nichols, Sag Harbor superintendent, believes that the pouches line up with the new restrictions but said that schools “haven’t gotten a lot of details yet.”
“We need more information from the governor regarding how she’s going to disburse funds and whether or not those funds will cover our costs or not,” Mr. Nichols said by phone Tuesday afternoon. “Our business administrator has not gotten any details yet about that.”
The thought is that perhaps the school can use some state money to cover the cost of the pouches. Between the fee from Yondr and the additional stipends for people to man the doors at the beginning and the end of the day the school pays $25,000 to implement its smartphone restrictions.
“We have our cellphone policy and Yondr built into our budget regardless of what the state does,” Mr. Nichols said.
Joshua Odom, superintendent and principal of the Montauk School, said by phone Tuesday morning that he “had not read the specifics yet,” but “if there’s any changes needed we’ll make them.”
Mr. Odom said the school has a cellphone restriction in place already that limits use to students’ lockers, but they are not allowed to use them anywhere else during the day, “It’s inevitable that students will have them but I don’t particularly want them in use during the school day,” he said.