Todays the First Day of No Smartphones in Schools

As the year begins in the city’s public school system, students and their parents have to adjust to a smartphone ban. The phones must be stored in pouches or lockers.

By James Banon Sept 4, 2025, 5:04 a.m. IT

The doors will open this morning at Brooklyn Technical High School. Cruz English, a junior, is worried about tomorrow. the second day of school. He expects to miss at least one class, just standing in line, waiting to get in.

His concern is the new statewide policy effectively banning smartphones from the moment students walk into a school until the moment they hear the final bell.

“We’ll see how it goes” once the school has given each student a pouch to put his or her phone in, he said – a formidable logistical assignment at the largest public school in the city, with nearly 6,000 students.

A Department of Education spokeswoman said that lines wouldn’t be an issue at Brooklyn Tech. But the new smartphone policy has brought more than the usual anxiety to the first day of school in New York City.

It comes amid more than the usual uncertainty as schools reopen. That is because many administrators – and parents – are waiting to see who is elected mayor in November.

The possibility of a new mayor in January means there could also be a new schools chancellor and a shift in educational policies. Several top officials in the Education Department under Mayor Eric Adams have already announced plans to move on. Dan Weisberg; who as the first deputy chancellor was outranked only by Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos, left last month.

Polls have shown that Adams, who is running as an independent, is trailing Zahran Mamdani, who has remained the front-runner since winning the Democratic primary m June; former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who lost to Mamdani and is now running as a third-party candidate; and Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee.

For now, the smartphone ban is dominating the conversation at schools. The ban, and the idea that school days should be free of distractions like social media and text messages, was pushed by Gov: Kathy Hochul, who has made the phrase “learning and growing, not clicking and scrolling” almost a mantra. She signed a law that prohibits the “unsanctioned” use of smartphones for the entire school day, which she calls “bell to bell.”

A state law left it to each school to develop its own policy, but in broad terms; the Department of Education said that smartphones would have to be “stored” in pouches or “school-assigned personal or shared lockers.”

“Backpacks alone are not considered a sufficient storage option,” according to the FAQ section on the department’s webpage, unless the backpacks are left “in a closet or cubby that cannot be accessed by students without permission.”

Some schools have already imposed smartphone bans and found them effective. Dr. Curtis Palmore, the chief executive of United Charter High Schools, said the seven-school network had done so last year, his second in the job.

In his first year, he stopped by a student lounge. “They had their heads glued to their phones,” he said. “I decided it would be best if we focused all our students on having as much instructional time by not having any focus on their cellphones.” Some students asked if they could have their phones back at lunch or recess. “We opted not to provide that,” he said.

At Brooklyn Tech, the school will provide each student with a pouch. (Replacing a lost pouch will cost $10 at the school store.) The Department of Education spokeswoman said the pouches would be handed out once students were in the building today, reducing congestion at the entrances.

Cruz does not have a smartphone to put in a pouch. His mother, Toria English, got him a flip phone that is not connected to the internet, which means he will not have to stow it – and could use it to call her in an emergency. She got the flip phone through us Mobile, a New York-based company that leases mobile network access from major cellular carriers.

Its chief executive, Ahmed Khattak, said that be had children in schools where smartphones had already been banned, so “l’ve experienced this whole thing around devices firsthand.”

“Devices can be extremely counter productive in school,” he said, even as he acknowledged that smartphone bans had boosted sales.

“Regardless of that,” he said, “I’m super supportive of kids being able to focus in school and not be able to text or watch social media in school.”

Link to Article – https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/nyregion/first-day-of-school-smartphones.html