In May 2025, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law that bans cellphones and internet-enabled devices from all NYS public school classrooms.
Since the phone ban has had time to take effect, it has not only affected students, but staff have also felt the impact of the new policy. We asked students and staff for their opinion on the ban.
Mr. Amit Chowdury, a science teacher at TAEHS, believes this policy has had a positive effect in his classroom.
“In my classes, not having cell phones allows my students to do better and makes my classroom experience better,” Chowdury said. “Also, it allows students to communicate with each other, instead of being on their phones, being off task. It allows for more educational activity.”
Mr. Devendra Seecharran, head of TAEH’s SkillsUSA and CTE teacher, described how the school has tried to meet the increased demands for devices.
“The school has adapted to the school cellphone ban by ordering more laptops; we are currently out and are waiting to purchase more,” Seecharan said. He also questioned the policy’s effects in the real world. “I think the cellphone ban is ridiculous because it doesn’t prepare you for the real world. In a real workplace, your employers aren’t going to take your phone away; they are just going to fire you.”
Mr. Qu explained how the phones can be a problem for students and staff within a school environment.
“They’re constantly recording stuff happening around the school. And some people don’t want to be recorded.” He also pointed out how cyberbullying can affect students, even if it is mostly out of school, the ban is beneficial. “So if I were still a student, this wouldn’t affect me at all, but if it’s affecting some students nowadays, I can understand why it is everything because there’s so much online work now.”
Narine Persaud, junior at Edison, said the phone ban would be positive. “Students are being affected in both positive and negative ways because they may feel less distracted without cell phones,” and negative for students, “it also takes away student communication between each other, oftentimes students’ only immediate communication method with friends and family.” Letting them focus on more work, but still miss out on communicating with each other.
Chalkbeat reported that, “Mayor Adams, too, talked about the need to reduce bullying. The share of New York City students who report that their classmates harass or intimidate each other online has grown in the wake of the pandemic.”
Students are still adapting to the phone ban as we are still in the first year with the ban being in effect. There is still more that has yet to be discovered about the phone ban, but so far, in Thomas Edison CTE High School, the phone ban has been successful.
