Three Ringing Cheers for Bell-to-Bell Cell Phone Ban in Classes

He can see their bright, shiny faces. Without the glow of screens.

That is one of the ways Maximillian Sugiura says the ban on digital devices is improving the experience of being at his school. Sugiura is the principal of The High School of Art & Design on East 56th Street. The bell-to-bell ban on digital devices has been in place only a couple of weeks, there and across public schools in New York State. Yet, Sugiura said he could already measure the change in the upturned faces of his students as they gathered for their welcome-back assemblies.

“We go over the rules, regulations, and what to expect during the school year,” explains Sugiura, who is in his seventh year as principal. “Now, in years past, without the cell phone ban, those conversations with groups of upwards of 400 students at a single time would sound and look very different. Today I can tell you that looking out at the sea of faces and getting almost 100 percent engagement from the auditorium is not something that I'm completely used to.

“Those who haven't historically bought in, or those who have been distracted, or found a way just to stare down into their palm when they're in the large group setting, no longer have that luxury and are therefore engaging with the message. So that's been an immediate benefit and just a visual difference.”

To be sure, Art & Design is a special school. The kids audition to get in and are serious about being there. “I’ve got a really great community,” said Sugiura. But the positive experience reported by Sugiura echoes through many public schools in these early days of the new state law requiring students to stow their cell phones and other digital devices.

“Parents, teachers, kids cheer phone ban,” the New York Post reported. “CellAbate Good Times.” Perhaps that headline writer took poetry classes at Art & Design? The ever-nuanced New York Times allowed that “New York’s Ban on Cellphones in Schools Is Going ‘Better Than Expected.’ ”

In his diplomatic manner Sugiura acknowledges he had trepidations. Parents worried about reaching their kids. Teachers did not want to be enforcers. Just collecting and returning devices from 1,540 students was a daunting thought. And a year ago, when everyone was expecting the phone ban to start in New York City schools, Mayor Eric Adams put the brakes on only weeks before school started.

“So, at first I was very curious to see how the whole thing was going to evolve,” Sugiura says. Logistics matters. The school was fortunate, Sugiura said, that every student has a locker. Each morning the students are required to place their phones in a pouch the school provides (from a vendor called, of all things, NutKase) and then lock them in their locker for the day.

That is not the end of electronics, just personal devices. Since many of the courses involve digital arts and skills, such as video editing and graphic design, the school provides laptops, iPads, and Chromebooks (part of a citywide program to equalize Internet access).They are used under supervision and only for educational purposes, under the rules. Of course, there have been breaches. But Sugiura says he can count them on one hand. The reports from Art & Design and elsewhere suggest that the very zeitgeist is being reformed by removing the ubiquitous devices.

For example, Sugiura reports that the time it takes for kids to move between classes has been reduced. They are watching where they are going and not bumping into one another as much, he said. Another “incredible” measure Sugiura cites is that there has been a noticeable decline in the number of parents calling in with concerns that their kids were not making friends in the first week of school.

“I can tell you that in the hallways, in classrooms, all those things that we talked about as potential benefits are actually manifesting,” Sugiura says. “Students are getting to know each other better.”

Lunch is transformed, Sugiura reports. “Because they're not allowed to use their devices during lunch either, right? So now what are they doing? Well, they're eating and they're talking,” he said. “They're engaging with each other, and the social and emotional restorative piece that we're now getting back is hopefully going to continue to pay dividends later.”

A teacher at another high school told the Post that kids are fighting less during recess because, as a student told her, what’s the point if they can’t record it on their phone.

“If there's anything that I want to engender in my students it's self-regulation, self-control, and discipline across a variety of behaviors,” Sugiura says. “So, while this does seem restrictive, they know that it's in their best interest now and will be something for them to consider as they move on to post-secondary, as well. Because the problem of technology addiction isn't something that just stops at high school, either.”

He sheepishly admits even he has been called out, good-naturedly, by his students for focusing on his screen in school. “I'm definitely more conscientious,” he explained. “Teachers don't use their cell phones in class, unless for purely instructional purposes. For that same reason, I don't use mine in a way that creates a clear dichotomy of power in the building. And I've had students who have seen me on my phone in an instructional setting once or twice be like ‘Hey.’

”In a nice way. “In good mood about it, and it's worth a laugh. But I recognize that you have to model best practices.”