Education leaders plan to gather Friday in Albany to discuss how to address cell phone use in schools, and online safety for students.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected during the next legislative session to propose a state ban on student cellphones and personal technology in schools. Friday’s discussions at the Disconnected conference hosted by the state teachers union, could help solidify that plan.
Right now, there isn’t a consensus among state education leaders on whether a blanket ban is the answer. But there is shared and serious concerns when it comes to youths' relationship with technology.
“It's pretty clear that a distraction free learning environment — which means phones, earbuds, watches, all that stuff away for the whole school day — is what's best for learning, what’s best for relationship building, what's best for our students’ mental health,” said Melinda Person, president of New York State United Teachers, which is hosting the event.
NYSUT hasn’t taken an official stance on a statewide ban, but Person said she’s seen how some schools have managed to keep them out of classrooms — whether by using magnetic pouches to seal off the phone for the whole school day, having students leave their phones at the door before each class, or having students keep their phones in their lockers.
“We don't want to put phones away during the entire school day just because we're trying to sort of put our head in the sand and avoid technology.” Person said. “What we are going to be doing is giving kids a break from the sort of addictive aspects of the technology, while simultaneously teaching them how to self-monitor their own habits and to understand how to use email and social media in a safe and respectful way.”
The New York School Boards Association has come out in opposition to a ban.
“Our view is that's a local decision that should be made,” said Jay Worona, the association’s deputy executive director. "School boards want to accommodate the needs and the concerns that parents and their students will have, so we're just not thinking that a one-stop-shop for every single school district is necessarily the way to go.”
The bigger issue to address, Worona said, is educating students on how to safely use technology and navigate social media. And those necessary safety measures must address bullying, detecting scams, recognizing predatory behavior and developing critical thinking skills to combat the spread of misinformation and its ripple effects on society.
“I think democracy is at stake here,” Worona said. “I think that we need to find a way to not only engage in civil discourse, which is very important, but to be able to make sure that what we argue about, what we have disagreements over, are actually connected to reality and facts.”
The effects of misinformation don’t just live in virtual online spaces of Reddit forums and comment sections of social media posts. Those effects ripple out into real world experiences.
Like in Springfield, Ohio, which has been caught in a political firestorm that erupted with a false claim about Haitian immigrants amplified by former President Donald Trump.
A series of bomb threats there in recent days shut down city and school buildings and resulted in canceled public events, according to NPR reporting. And state troopers were sent in to guard students going to school.
It’s one symptom of a shifting, global political landscape in which misinformation on social media has fueled extremism and become a political weapon.
“I remember back in the day, because I'm an old guy, this country was very divided on the war in Vietnam,” Worona said. “But when Walter Cronkite got on CBS news ... everyone was able to understand that there was absolute truth to what was being factually told to us. There were disagreements, but we didn't disagree on what constituted the state of facts.”
