{"id":233503,"date":"2026-05-16T03:16:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T03:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/233503\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T03:16:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T03:16:33","slug":"nyc-teachers-say-phone-ban-in-classrooms-has-caused-jaw-dropping-change-in-students-attention-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/233503\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC teachers say phone ban in classrooms has caused \u2018jaw dropping\u2019 change in students\u2019 attention"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 15 marks one year since Governor Kathy Hochul enacted a \u201cbell-to-bell\u201d ban on personal phones in public schools, impacting almost a million<\/a> children in K-12 public and charter schools across the state.<\/p>\n

Teachers who spoke to The Post all say the ban has had an overwhelmingly postive impact on their schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the cell phone ban has been remarkable,\u201d Dr. Jessica Chock-Goldman, director of clinical services at Bard High School Early College of Manhattan on the Lower East Side, told The Post.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve been astounded by how much of a shift it has been.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jessica<\/p>\n

Jessica Chock-Goldman said she saw kids playing cards in the hallway recently. Courtesy photo<\/p>\n

\u201cKids actually talk to each other in school. They sit in the hallway, they engage, they laugh, they study. They play games,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually saw a card game in the hall recently, which was jaw dropping. I\u2019ve been working in schools now for 12 years, and I have never seen that.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the school year comes to a close, teachers tell The Post that their students appear totally transformed.<\/p>\n

Before the ban, 8th grade social studies teacher Michael Simmon says it felt like \u201cyou could be in a classroom with 25 students and still feel that you\u2019re by yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

But without the constant distraction of devices, he reports, kids are finally present again: \u201cStudents used to get a vibration on their phone or they try to hide the phone and check it. They no longer have that luxury. So now they\u2019re focused on the lesson, on the assignment, on the task.\u201d<\/p>\n

In eleven years of teaching, he also says he\u2019s never seen kids so locked in<\/a> as they have been this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey tell me the work has become easier, that it\u2019s easier for them to focus,\u201d Simmon, who works at IN-Tech Academy in the Bronx, said. \u201cIt\u2019s cut down on bathroom breaks. It\u2019s cutting down on a lot of chatter in the classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Students<\/p>\n

Students at New York City public schools are not allowed to have their cell phones for the entire school day. Michael Nagle<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just in the classroom. When he walks by the cafeteria during lunch, it\u2019s now full of energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re talking with each other instead of just looking down at their phones,\u201d he marveled. \u201cNow they have to communicate, they have to socialize. They have to talk, find out how their day is going, what\u2019s going on, what class do you have next, did you do last night\u2019s homework?\u201d<\/p>\n

Chock-Goldman has similar reports<\/a> from Bard High School Early College. She\u2019s noticed more students talking about plans and says many more of her students are socializing together on the weekends.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause kids are engaging all day long [during the school week], they\u2019re able to develop deeper relationships, meaningful friendships, and therefore I think they have more of a desire to socialize outside of school,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Michael Simmon says that he\u2019s never seen students so engaged in his 12 years teaching.<\/p>\n

While she reports teachers were unanimously in support of the ban, kids were a little more reluctant. She recalls \u201cmoaning and groaning\u201d from students who are no longer able to hide behind their phones.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhones can be a little protective, meaning that you have something to engage with if you are a little anxious about socializing,\u201d she explained. \u201cThey don\u2019t have that protective tool anymore. They are required now to develop social skills in a way that they hadn\u2019t been before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Stosich is a professor at Fordham University, where she runs the educational doctorate program. Her students are school leaders, principals, assistant principals, and superintendents.<\/p>\n

Before the phone ban, she says teachers felt completely out of control<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Elizabeth<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Stosich says the ban makes it easier for teachers to hold the line on phone policies. Courtesy photo<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents [were] less engaged during the school day, they [were] engaging in problematic behavior \u2014 fights [were] breaking out in the bathroom,\u201d she said. \u201cMany teachers were fighting students every day, having to enforce their own phone policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

But now the top-down ban takes the onus off the teachers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes the guesswork out of whether or not smartphones are allowed. [Having a ban lets] teachers focus on teaching kids,\u201d she said. \u201cWe can\u2019t control what happens outside of school, but we can control what happens during the school day.<\/p>\n

\"Children<\/p>\n

Children are more engaged with teachers and each other now they are not on their phones, educators say. The Washington Post via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just created such a relief and just opened up space for real world relationships and just fun and engagement in schools again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stosich is also the leader of a chapter of Mothers Against Media Addiction in Brooklyn, where her 6- and 9-year-old go to public school. Though they\u2019re still too young to have cell phones, she says the bans have changed how parents of younger children are approaching technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially in New York City, when kids are walking around the city on their own and taking public transportation, there\u2019s been this idea that this is just the way things are, that kids have to have a smartphone to get around,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has really changed the narrative about whether kids, quote unquote, need a phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only one widescale study on cell phone use has been conducted, which looked at 40,000 schools over the last seven years. The report, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found teachers and students at schools with strict cell phone bans reacted positively to them, but that test scores did not remarkably improve compared to schools with different approaches.<\/p>\n

Also, not every teacher says the ban was the fix they were expecting. Christina Montera, a high school social studies teacher in the South Bronx, says that \u201cimplementation became inconsistent\u201d over the course of the school year.<\/p>\n

\"Teachers<\/p>\n

Teachers say students were often distracted by devices before the phone ban. Budimir Jevtic \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

At her school, students put their phones in locked pouches, but \u201csome students figured out ways around the system,\u201d like putting old phones in the pouches and keeping their primary ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe policy was introduced with good intentions\u2026 but schools were largely left to figure out their own implementation,\u201d she explained. \u201cHonestly, to do this well, schools need dedicated resources\u2014possibly even staff\u2014to manage it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s hoping her school figures out a more permanent solution, because the initial days of the ban seemed so promising.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents were more social, conversations came back, fewer kids were isolating themselves with headphones, and there was a real improvement in focus during class,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could see it in their work completion and even in their grades. Especially coming out of COVID, that increase in face-to-face interaction mattered.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May 15 marks one year since Governor Kathy Hochul enacted a \u201cbell-to-bell\u201d ban on personal phones in public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[91615,25897,6602,91616,91617,9,24,55,54,3059,56,13622,209,91618,2585,5181],"class_list":["post-233503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-bard-high-school-early-college","tag-cell-phone","tag-charter-schools","tag-jessica-chock-goldman","tag-michael-simmon","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-city-public-schools","tag-ny","tag-public-school","tag-public-schools","tag-school-day","tag-students","tag-teachers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}