‘Save The Next Generation Of Students’: Kathy Hochul Advocates For Statewide Phone Bans in Schools

Forbes Breaking News

At a roundtable discussion with education leaders, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) spoke on a statewide initiative to limit students’ access to cellphones that will start in the 2025-2026 school year.

Transcript

00:00State the only one I probably don't have the guts for a school board because you're on the line of

00:05fire. It's hard work. It's so important and you're the unsung heroes of keeping it all together for

00:11our students and our school districts and so I'm always grateful to people like Ed who step up and

00:16others. Assemblywoman Paula Kay has joined us. Paula, thank you for participating and your support

00:22for this important legislation and our superintendent Amy Creeden, the school district. I want to thank

00:29you. It's an extraordinary district. You know, it has a phenomenal reputation and that starts with

00:33leadership from all of you here and I'm happy you could join us well and Deborah Heps, the chief

00:38operating officer of the BOCES here but we're talking about something that I'm absolutely passionate

00:44about. I've been on a journey since probably a year and a half, almost two years now to talk about the

00:52mental health challenges that our students are facing, young people are facing, unprecedented

00:56and trying to figure out are they experiencing higher levels of anxiety and depression and

01:03suicidal thoughts was triggered by the pandemic and the isolation that they felt and that disconnect

01:10during really formative years in their lives and many of them being denied the rituals of life, you know,

01:15the graduation from kindergarten or, you know, middle school to high school and high school graduations

01:20and proms and so I think it had, you know, any adult who thinks they're over the pandemic talk to young

01:25people who experience it. They're not over it yet. I just need everybody right set on that one but also

01:31this tracks the rise over the last decade of frequent, you know, common, common use of cell phones in

01:40schools. Very few schools, very few school districts stood up and said you can't do that because it became

01:47really the norm and it was hard. It would have been hard to stand up and say, well, we're the school

01:52that's going to do this or the school board or the superintendent or even parents saying, you know,

01:58my child will not be the one with the cell phone. It's, there's a lot of peer pressure at many, many

02:02levels and I understand that. So it just kind of continued and what happened paralleling that was the

02:10rise in addictive algorithms being promoted by social media companies and that was at all, at all about 10 years

02:17ago. And so you can see a definite rise in addictive algorithms bombarding our students and their minds all day long.

02:25The trajectory of that with the rise in mental health problems, absolute direct correlation and people are only now

02:33uncovering that fact and it is very late for the current students who've been subject to this for a long time.

02:40Those who've already graduated and those who are our older students, but I want to make sure we save the next

02:45generation of students that, you know, the students who are with us today. It's going to be a tough adjustment for

02:51many of them who are used with the younger ones, not so much, but it's going to be like breaking an addiction. You know,

02:58all of a sudden you've been smoking your whole life and people take the cigarettes away the next day. It is going to be hard.

03:03So I need people to acknowledge that, recognize that parents need to be on board with talking to their

03:11kids and school districts, pushing out the information that we've been creating to tell parents, you know,

03:17weaning techniques. One school superintendent said he's already starting with, you know, Mondays are entirely

03:23cell phone free in their house. He's actually says, you know, it's surprising. My teenagers started bringing out board games

03:29and there were conversations at the breakfast table and the dinner table. And he goes, we hadn't had that in a long time.

03:35And I realized what our own practices at home were doing to our children. And so I'm encouraging parents to,

03:42you know, be really focused on this. It's going to be hard for the kids. And for school districts, I can tell you right now,

03:48and the media should be aware, there's going to be disruptions. I mean, the first day, there's going to be confusion.

03:54You know, what do you mean we have to lock it up? Where do we lock it up? What do we have to do?

03:57So all the education you can do in advance is going to help, but there'll be some school districts that have started and say,

04:03well, there's a long line the first few days because they have to get people acclimated to it. So expect some disruption.

04:10Change is hard. It is hard. But as I did my research and studied these trends and talked to countless parents and students

04:19about what's happening in their lives, I know we're on the right path. And history will look back at us and say,

04:24it's a shame it took so long. And education policy is not normally my jurisdiction. But I'm leaning into

04:33it because I'm also a mom. And I see what has happened to our young people. And I just can't

04:38ignore the voices of those crying for help, including the student at a roundtable I did at

04:43the beginning of my journey. And she says, you know, we just can't put these down. We can't be the only

04:47one. We'll be ostracized. And we won't know what's happening. They're gathering in the girls' room and

04:51talking about me. And I've got to know that. I got to know what they're saying about my clothes. And

04:54I want to be at the party on Friday or not. She says, I cannot do that. She says, you've got to

04:59save us from ourselves. You've got to stop this. And I was like, that's all I need to hear.

05:04That was a cry for help from students. And we will get through this adjustment. And our kids will be

05:11smarter because we're paying attention in class. Our poor teachers who are so frustrated with the

05:16competition with teaching math and competing with the TikTok dance video, it's hard. You're going

05:22to lose every time, I'm afraid. And so teachers are frustrated. Parents are seeing a change in their

05:28children that they don't understand. And we're going to help them understand what this is for the

05:32better, despite your initial anxiety of having that disconnect from your child. You're used to that

05:37umbilical cord that has followed them from pregnancy all the way through school. And it's not going to be

05:42there. But the school districts are very thoughtful about making sure that parents know that they

05:47should have a way for parents to reach their students during the day and vice versa. You know,

05:52there's a change in plans or you forget your school lunch. We forgot our school lunch. We

05:57borrowed our friend's sandwich and paid him back the next day or borrowed 50 cents. So actually people

06:02start talking to each other a little more. I think it's going to be good for the independence of

06:06students. And ultimately, the last thing is these students will emerge as four more well-adjusted

06:13individuals and ultimately adults. They won't be conditioned of staring at a hand. They'll be used to

06:20making eye contact. They'll be used to conversations again. Your halls are going to have noises you have not

06:25heard in years for the districts that have not gone first. And it's going to be beautiful. Even if it's arguing and

06:31fighting or whatever. It's just more real as opposed to this virtual artificial world, which our schools

06:37and students have descended into for a long time now. So I'm very optimistic about this. I want to make

06:43sure we hear from our individuals here and ask President Estrada to take it away. But I just want to

06:50thank Middletown School District for being open-minded to this conversation and getting your information in on

06:58time. Even adults sometimes are procrastinating. It's not just our students. And a vast, vast majority

07:06of school districts are there and a few others need some help from us and we'll get there. But thank you

07:09very much. Great. Well, thank you, Governor, first for allowing us the honor of having you come to

07:16Middletown. Everything that you've already discussed in your opening remarks is exactly what we experienced

07:23here at Middletown. Back in 2021, when we first went to a K through 12, bell to bell, no cell phone

07:30policy, we kind of tore off the Band-Aid right away here. And under the leadership of Pastor John

07:38Williams, who was president at the time, along with several of our other board members who are in

07:42attendance this afternoon, they, as well as us this year, understood the challenge in trying to

07:51implement the policy very quickly because we saw there was a need and a problem, especially here at

07:57the high school level. But I think you're going to find out through our panel discussion, both from

08:03administrators and teachers and students, the benefits of having a bell to bell, no cell phone

08:11policy in place and how, what that does for our students to be working on task each and every day.

08:21We're going to, exactly what you said, there were growing pains along the way, including the lines

08:26that you talked about, a special, you know, any special emergency. But you kind of go with the flow

08:33with that and you correct wherever you need to correct. Here we have a mantra that it's okay to

08:38fail as long as you fix what is broken and then move on from there. Your points about what our students

08:47are experiencing from a mental hygiene approach. This is our first cohort that's graduating this year

08:54that went through the COVID years. So they missed out on some of the middle school

08:59peer-to-peer communications that they enjoy now because there are no cell phones. And I'm sure

09:07Superintendent Creedon, as we discuss it with the panel this morning, will point out how there's

09:14a huge reduction in social media-related incidents because of not having cell phones in place here. So

09:23each and every year we improve on the, on the policy. Our students each and every year have now

09:31gotten used to it. And as Ms. Creedon told me earlier, the first couple of years, it was about

09:37changing the culture and changing the culture. We at the Board of Education, last year when we were

09:43doing the yonder pouches, expanding that into the middle schools, the first statement I made as part of

09:49the school year was to the parents. And it was to say that this is not going anywhere. So it can either

09:56be an easy transition or a hard transition depending on the conversation you have with your student at

10:02home before school starts each and every year. So we want to thank you for your leadership at the

10:07state level for expanding this statewide. It made our job a little bit easier and kind of patted ourselves

10:14on the back saying, okay we were ahead of the game and we moved forward. And you can be ambassadors to

10:17other school districts and I encourage that or other, you know, teachers, your contemporaries,

10:23whether it's school board members, teachers, superintendent, principals. You know, I think you can talk about,

10:29like I said, the growing pains. And again, it's not going to be a perfect rollout. It's just not,

10:33it's just not possible. Uh, but eventually, you know, you can tell us or maybe someone can reflect on

10:39how long it took before, uh, just sort of became normalized. And so. Awesome. Yeah.

10:44So we're going to get ready in our panel discussion in a minute or so.

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