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New York’s school phone ban showed promise this year — but it will fizzle without family support

New York’s crackdown on cellphones in schools sounds tough on paper.

In reality, it will fall apart without something far more important: discipline and family accountability.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push for bell-to-bell phone restrictions, which rolled out statewide in the 2025–26 school year, is being framed as a major step toward restoring focus in classrooms. The state says it’s about getting students off their screens and back to learning, while still requiring schools to give parents a way to contact their children during the day.

But here’s the truth from inside the classroom: You can collect every phone in the building by first period — and still have chaos by second.

Why? Because phones were never the root problem.

I’ve worked as a teacher in Yonkers, Mount Vernon and New York City. The students are the same. What changes everything is school culture — and whether adults actually enforce rules. In schools where expectations are clear and discipline is consistent, kids fall in line quickly. In schools where rules bend, enforcement is uneven, and consequences are negotiable, nothing works — phone ban or........

© New York Post