New York City to End Cellphone Ban in City's Public Schools

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that he is ending the city’s ban on cellphones in its public schools. De Blasio said the city will offer a variety of policy options that individual schools can choose to adopt, which may range from allowing cellphone use in some classes for instructional purposes to requiring students to store cellphones during the school day. The new policies will replace the ban on March 2, de Blasio said during a news conference. De Blasio promised during his 2013 mayoral campaign to end the ban, which he said had been unpopular among parents since previous Mayor Michael Bloomberg implemented it in 2006. “The policy of the previous administration was simply out of touch with modern parenting,” de Blasio said. “We’re now going to make this a policy that works with parents.” De Blasio noted that schools were enforcing the ban unevenly and that some students were forced to pay for cellphone storage, which Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer said in a statement “amounted to a regressive tax.” The New York City Parents Union praised de Blasio’s announcement, saying in a statement that “we will feel more comfortable knowing we can keep in contact with our children while they are commuting to school.” Council of School Supervisors & Administrators President Ernest Logan said in a statement that “our collective priority is educating students in a safe and secure environment. We hope these new policies do not undermine that goal.”