ALBANY, NY (WRGB) — Governor Kathy Hochul’s initiative to ban cell phone use by students during school hours is gaining traction among educators, but it is also raising concerns about potential inequities and communication issues.
Starting next school year, the governor aims to enforce a policy requiring students to disconnect from their devices during school hours. The proposal is driven by worries over social media’s negative impact on mental health and the potential for disruptions to learning.
The governor officially launched the awareness campaign for the ban at Farnsworth Middle School in Guilderland. While expressing that he and his organization strongly support for the governor’s plan, the head of the New York chapter of the NAACP, Anthony Harmon, expressed concerns about the policy’s equitable implementation.
“A great concern to the NAACP is that once this policy is implemented is that it’s consistent throughout the State of New York,” Harmon said. “That the kid in Farmingdale is treated no different than a kid in the Finger Lakes area.”
In a statement, Christine Waters, NAACP New York State Conference Education Chair echoed the support, saying in part “models that encourage responsible use of technology and supports the needs of our students and teachers. We believe firmly that we must do so without adding to the Codes of Conduct any additional obstacles to the academic pursuits of students such as the inclusion of zero tolerance policies that would see them removed from the classroom for any amount of time.”
Attorney Sivan Zak from Tully Rinckey PLLC spoke to us about the concerns over consistent implementation and enforcement, predicting legal challenges in districts where the policy might be applied inequitably.
“I anticipate cases coming out of these districts where we’ll see it is being done inequitably especially for lower income communities where a cell phone may be the only tech a child has,” Zak said. “I just foresee there will be more punitive action coming from this than actual safety and I don’t know how much it’ll benefit the children and their parents.”
