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New York Lawmakers Reach Deal On 'Bell-To-Bell' School Cellphone Ban (cbsnews.com) 68

Posted by BeauHD from the no-more-distractions dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul says a $254 billion state budget deal has been reached, including a "bell-to-bell" school cellphone ban. [...] The distraction-free policy would take effect next school year, making New York the largest state in the country with a "bell-to-bell" cellphone ban. Hochul says the plan will help protect children from addictive technology and improve their mental health. The New York State United Teachers union also came out in support of the ban, saying "we are at a crisis point."

The governor previously outlined the proposal back in January, saying it would ban the use of smartphones and other internet-enabled devices on school grounds during the school day. That includes classroom time, lunch and study hall periods. "A bell-to-bell ban, morning until the day is over, is not going to hurt your kids. It's going to help them emerge with stronger mental health and resiliency," she told CBS News New York at the time.

Hochul said the ban would include smartphones and other personal "smart" devices, like smartwatches. Exemptions could be made if a student requires a device to manage a medical condition or for translation purposes. Cellphones that don't have internet capability and devices that are provided by the school for lesson plans would still be allowed. The proposal would let individual schools come up with their own ways to implement the ban and store the devices, and schools would be able to decide whether to have students leave them in things like pouches, lockers or cubbies. It would also require schools to make sure parents have a way to contact their children during the day, if needed. "Protecting our communities requires more than streets where people feel safe. We need classrooms where young minds can flourish, and that means eliminating once and for all the digital distractions that steal our kids' attention," the governor said, adding, "We protected our kids before from cigarettes, alcohol and drunk driving, and now, we're protecting them from addictive technology designed to hijack their attention."

New York Lawmakers Reach Deal On 'Bell-To-Bell' School Cellphone Ban More | Reply

New York Lawmakers Reach Deal On 'Bell-To-Bell' School Cellphone Ban

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  • ..legitimate need for phones in school
    They are only a distraction, and a serious one

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jsonn ( 792303 )
      There are legitimate reasons, e.g. informing parents that some classes at the end of the day have been cancelled. But they are rare.

      • Re:There is NO... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by TWX ( 665546 ) on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @07:56PM (#65341343)

        I used to work for a K-12 in IT support. School districts have systems or subscribe to services to blast-out notifications. Back when I was in it, those were voice messaging systems that would read out a prerecorded message to the phone of the guardian(s) on record. More modern systems may include SMS capability or even an app that ostensibly is for parents to interact with teachers, but supports more notification capabilities than just that.

        Around fifteen years ago a new deputy superintendent tried to push for a BYOD policy for student devices, up to and including phones and obsolete PDAs like older Palm devices. The must've been pretty slick showing those old devices doing something meaningful because there was a hard push to make this happen. Ultimately where it was piloted it was basically not used, either because the kids didn't have personal devices to bring to begin with, or because the kids were doing anything except their actual lessons.

        I would agree that there's basically no benefit to having cell phones during instruction time. For old kids, save 'em for passing periods, lunchtime, and before or after school. For younger kids, just don't even bother having them during school hours.

      • The proposed legislation allows this one. "bell to bell". Your classes finished, you can call your parents.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by jsonn ( 792303 )
          The point is to inform them *before* the last class, so that they actually have time to come.

          • Re:There is NO... (Score:4, Informative)

            by jezwel ( 2451108 ) on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @10:41PM (#65341569)

            The point is to inform them *before* the last class, so that they actually have time to come.

            That's something the school should be doing rather than the student. The school has contact details for the parents and can (or should, my school can) send targeted SMS and email messages about things like this.

          • The point is to inform them *before* the last class, so that they actually have time to come.

            If the school ends classes early, surely the students can hang out on campus until parents arrive? Or go home with a friend? Or do homework? Or play a sport? Or go to the library? Or... or... or...

            • If the school ends classes early, surely the students can hang out on campus until parents arrive?

              Several times while I was in school it rained so badly that enough kids weren't able to get to school and they had to close for the day. Naturally, they couldn't let us go home on our own, so we had to wait for a parent or other responsible adult came to get us. Something like that would have been very useful. And, the day JFK was killed, they closed the school (I was in Junior High at the time; not Middl
      • Is the fucking suburbs. You would think that a bunch of nerdy dudes would have listened to the Rush song subdivisions but nope I guess not. It's a song about the isolation of living in a suburb.

        What the song doesn't address is where and why that isolation comes. It's because you're extremely spread out in the suburbs so you don't have a lot of opportunity for interacting with people outside of school and inside of school you don't get all that much time. You get 1 hour for lunch and if you're at a reall
      • Schools have phones that can be used for that stuff. It worked well for the majority of the twentieth century.

        • >"Schools have phones that can be used for that stuff. It worked well for the majority of the twentieth century."

          Exactly. I went through school when there was no Internet or cell phones. But OMG, we survived just fine. If there was something urgent, the school office could contact the parent or the parent could contact the office who would then contact the child.

          Sure, we had some limited distractions in classes- other stuff to read, calculators, some limited electronic games later on, a little note pa

  • The real reason is that they don't want kids reading news on social media that could radicalize them against a certain lobby
    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/ameri... [aa.com.tr]

    Hochul even wanted to ban facemasks (yes, a democrat banning masks) at protests
    https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]

  • is that it is possible to have 4-6 hours of your life without constant distractions. It IS possible.

    That this idea is so divisive and evokes extreme reactions by everybody is crazy. Crazy like suggesing to an addict that being normal has advantages... like good heath and long life.

    • How come I'm an ex-addict who wishes he were dead half the time?

      • it's zen, it means something different to each person. I obviously can't tell you .. how long a piece of string is. But there are certain realities that aren't really worth arguing about. Like whether something like opiates addiction is more healthy than not being addicted to opiates. Replace "opiates" with your particular poison. It helps to eliminate certain dead end arguments, which is what seriously addicted people almost unanimously do. There's other simple signs like the refusal to define a problem or

        • Why can't you mind your own business, or legalize drugs and help those who ask for help? Why won't you give me the freedom to OD if I choose? Does your desire to control my behavior say more about you than about me?

    • It doesn't help. It does not solve any of the underlying problems the kids are facing. It's a distraction because the people of the New York legislature and frankly the people of New York don't want to spend the time and money to help the kids for real.

      So we ban cell phones but we don't do anything about the kids not having any futures because they can't afford to go to college and no they can't all be plumbers and HVAC welders. We don't deal with the fact that a lot of those kids go hungry even in a we

      • It doesn't help. It does not solve any of the underlying problems the kids are facing. It's a distraction because the people of the New York legislature and frankly the people of New York don't want to spend the time and money to help the kids for real.

        I'll agree with that one.

        So we ban cell phones but we don't do anything about the kids not having any futures because they can't afford to go to college and no they can't all be plumbers and HVAC welders. We don't deal with the fact that a lot of those kids go hungry even in a wealthy State like New York. We don't give parents the support they need to raise kids because if you try to everyone has a fucking fit about oh don't you tell me how to raise my kid (I speak from bitter experience, my mom was a nut job and I could have used with someone intervening)

        So maybe I'm opening Pandora's Box here, but what would you suggest?

        • " what would you suggest?"

          Why not legalize drugs, right to camp, and suicide, for a start, so we have an out from your stupid idiotic coercive violent system?

          • " what would you suggest?"

            Why not legalize drugs, right to camp, and suicide, for a start, so we have an out from your stupid idiotic coercive violent system?

            Perhaps we don't do those things because school aged children haven't fully developed and therefore cannot make rational decisions like what you suggest. Perhaps.

      • Well, you didn't deny you were addicted, but you sure did change the subject.
        We are headed into a world where people must be connected to the internets like the Taelons were with the Commonality. It was wierdly disorienting for them, and for us apparently, to not be connected at all times. But people are different. A person needs time to be alone and/or quiet. That's why we have nap time in daycare.

        I would argue that applying a Stoic concept, a bit of self deprivation helps understand something with a grea

    • That this idea is so divisive and evokes extreme reactions by everybody is crazy. Crazy like suggesing to an addict that being normal has advantages... like good heath and long life.

      That's one of the things I definitely remember about pubic school. They have to hammer this idea into you that you must live your live your life exactly as you're been told, otherwise you'll end up a crackhead living in a cardboard box. You can't be trusted to use or do anything in a responsible manner, because that concept might give kids the impression that you're condoning such actions.

      And of course, once the bell rings at the end of the day, most of the kids do all those things you don't want them to

      • I don't think it's too much to ask. Afaik, you can't use a cell phone under water. So then what do athletes do when they train for who knows how many continuous hours in the pool. The idea that we can't do without phones for any amount of time is getting really creepy at this point. I guess it's just me, but I marvel at how people around me seem like addicts, willfully unaware and in denial of the harms that come with electronic devices. Jezus, the kids would have both hands free to smoke, the old fashioned

  • When I was in school, teachers used to love saying "you wouldnt walk around with a calculator in your pocket all the time, would you?"

    Teachers today: "NO, DON'T CARRY A GLOBALLY CONNECTED SUPER COMPUTER IN YOUR POCKET !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TWX ( 665546 )

      Learn how and why things work before turning to electronic aids to make performing the tasks easier.

      If you don't learn how and why, then you won't be able to actually choose the right operations to run on that electronic toy.

      • If you don't learn how and why, then you won't be able to actually choose the right operations to run on that electronic toy.

        Except the "how" is then proceeded by "now, demonstrate that you understand this concept by spending the rest of the period manually doing something that a machine could do instantly and with perfect precision".

        It's like being taught culinary arts by someone who asks you to bake a loaf of bread, but won't accept your work unless you grow the wheat and mill the flour by hand.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      "you wouldnt walk around with a calculator in your pocket all the time, would you?"

      Slide rule.

    • When I was in school, teachers used to love saying "you wouldnt walk around with a calculator in your pocket all the time, would you?"

      Yeah, that teacher-ism aged like milk.

  • What about Kindles and e-readers that are not connected to the schools WiFi?
    Are the kids allowed to read during their breaks?

    • TFA: "Cellphones that don't have internet capability and devices that are provided by the school for lesson plans would still be allowed."

  • so tired of moral panics. remember that time when D&D was gonna turn your brain into goop? or when video games, particularly grand theft auto, was going to instantly convert children into serial killers? need more examples?

    leave the kids alone!

    • Re:we’ve seen this before. (Score:5, Informative)

      by jsonn ( 792303 ) on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @08:15PM (#65341381)
      It's not a moral panic, there is actual evidence that a general cell phone ban does help. A lot.
    • I became so violent that I killed everyone. If you're reading this you might think you're alive but you're not because I killed you in 1993. I'm so sorry. If only I'd listened to senator Lieberman.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I became so violent that I killed everyone.

        Indeed, you do suffer from many psychological problems.

    • Difference is we weren't ignoring the teacher and playing D&D with each other actively during classes.
      We also were playing GTA after school, not in our hands during school.
      We weren't allowed handheld video games during classes. This is that. Not a moral issue.

      • I agree with you, but there is a small difference. I guess it was allowed to play handheld games in between two classes, and in this example, it could have been a Game Boy Color with GTA. While the proposed legislation prohibits internet-capable devices including during recess.

      • uh. In 2000-2002 or so, everyone with a TI-83 was playing drug wars and Doom, etc. Learn how to quickly swap to a math screen if the teacher stands up, etc.
    • it was no different when you couldn't bring your game boy in. cell phones do all that and more.

  • Chromebooks are MANDATED at my kid's school (Score:3)

    by jelwell ( 2152 ) on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @08:31PM (#65341425)

    Who care about the cell phones when the school is the one handing every kid a Chromebook and then refusing to supervise their use when in classrooms. I hate when a teacher asks me to help keep my kid from being distracted on their Chromebook. I always just flatly say, take it away from them - I don't want them to have it in class anyways. This is 100% a problem of their making. Yes, they have net nannies, but their software doesn't adapt as quickly as these kids do.
    joe.

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