NY Gov doubles down on student phone ban after lockdown at one school left parents outraged

Daily News Article   —   Posted on September 27, 2024

(by Vaughn Golden, Aneeta Bhole, Khristina Narizhnaya, NY Post) – New York Gov. Kathy Hochul doubled down on banning phones in classrooms Thursday — saying kids shouldn’t be distracted by screens during emergencies — after a lockdown at an Upper West Side school left parents railing against her proposal. [Unfounded reports of a threat in a Manhattan high school sparked the lockdown.].

“They need to be laser-focused on the adult in the front of the classroom to lead them to safety per training and protocols,” Hochul said at an unrelated press conference in Manhattan. “That’s directly from law enforcement what should happen in those situations.”

The governor’s statement came in response to a question from The Post about last week’s incident at Louis Brandeis High School that sparked outrage from parents who said they were left in the dark by school officials and law enforcement as their kids texted and called them.

NYC Schools Chancellor David Banks said last week that the Department of Education was opening an investigation into why parents weren’t notified of the ultimately unfounded threats that a man was locked in the school with a gun.

“I am very sorry to apologize to any parent who was not being communicated with in real time. That is unacceptable to me as the chancellor and for me personally as a parent,” Banks told reporters.

Hochul also acknowledged Thursday that the lack of communication with parents during the nearly hour-and-a-half long lockdown was a “shortcoming.”

“I absolutely agree, there has to be communication channels well in advance of any crisis or disruption happens on a campus at every single school, pre-school, elementary, middle schools, high schools,” Hochul said.

“That’s something we can focus on, is make sure that the communication plans between parents and law enforcement and the school district are tightened up and followed.”

The governor is still mulling the specifics of a statewide policy that would place restrictions on phone use in schools.

Banks has previously floated implementing a ban in city public schools, though one did not materialize by the start of the school year.

“We’ve not put an official cell phone ban in place, but I think that there are a wide range of reasons why we think cell phones are deeply distracted in schools,” he said after the Brandeis HS incident.

United Federation of Teachers (Union) President Michael Mulgrew told The Post last month that he supports the governor’s push for a phone ban, but said such a policy should give individual districts leeway on how to implement it.

The teacher’s union’s statewide umbrella organization, New York State United Teachers, is holding a conference in Albany on Friday addressing the impact of cellphones and social media on kids.

The UFT released a survey of its members earlier this week that showed 63% of Big Apple teachers support banning phones citywide.