Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Distraction-Free Schools: Governor Hochul, NYSUT and Capital Region School Districts Highlight Plans to Implement Bell-to-Bell Smartphone Restrictions This Fall

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul held a roundtable with New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) President Melinda Person, Capital Region school district administrators, teachers and other stakeholders to highlight their plans for implementing bell-to-bell smartphone restrictions when school resumes this fall. Capital Region school districts participating in today’s discussion included the Albany City School District, Schenectady City School District, and East Greenbush Central School District – all of whom have now finalized their distraction-free policy in advance of the State’s August 1 deadline.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will have photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

 Good morning. Indeed, it is a good morning. Yes, because this time next year, children all across the state will have had almost a year of regaining their lives back. Because right now they've been held captive by powerful forces intentionally by the companies that have designed them. Particularly when it comes to the social media companies that fought long and hard to stop us in our effort last year, where we fought and won and said, “No longer will children in the State of New York be bombarded with addictive algorithms and all night long messaging and having their private information sold.”

So we said you can no longer monetize our children's mental health, but how does that information bombard them? It is in something small. It is simple, and it sits in their hand all day long, and that is their cell phone, their smartphone. And so I'm proud to be here today at NYSUT Headquarters with an extraordinary champion who fought long and hard to bring us to this point, place as well. Shoulder to shoulder, we marched together. And Melinda Person, your leadership in this has been extraordinary.

And I also want to recognize a number of elected officials we have in the room. Senator Pat Fahy. Thank you, Senator, for your support in Albany. Also our County Executive, Dan McCoy, has joined us. Thank you for such a strong interest in helping out our children as well.

And we're going to have a great conversation with representatives from the region, our school superintendents and their union representatives. But Albany went first with starting it off for the summer school program, and we want to hear about how that's going. And I was struck when I saw a quote from one student who said, “It keeps me more locked in for all my classes. I don't have my phone, I don't have my headphones, so I just know that I can do my work and not worry about anything else.” That's from a student in the State of New York. That's what every student is soon going to feel, and that's empowering. It makes me enormously proud to know that we did something I think every other state should follow our lead and do.

And what do the teachers say? Students are very receptive. They've been more engaged in their learning. That's exactly what we were going for. That's exactly what we strove for when we thought about this and wanted to make sure that every child could be free from the clutches of this addictive device I mentioned.

I'm really excited that we have over 150 school districts already in the State of New York that have submitted their plans for implementation. We wanted to leave this to the localities, the local school districts and superintendents, school boards. They're all due August 1st, which is why we're out here again, telling everybody who's a little behind in doing their homework. Get it in on time. Okay. Get it in on time.

I'm real excited about this because we've had so many stories across the state, well over a year now, I've been on this journey to talk to students, but also talk to teachers who were so frustrated that they can no longer make that connection, that human connection with the student because the student is staring at their phone all day.

The superintendents, the school boards, parents, many of whom wanted to do the right thing, but it was just too hard. It's hard to make your student or your school be the ones that stand out. And there's a lot of peer pressure even among adults. And I heard from some teachers that they didn't want to be the bad cop teacher where they were enforcing their cell phone policies and others were saying, “It's not a big deal. Let's let the students do it.” So this is what we're right-setting.

And it's been going on for over a decade, which is mind boggling that it took this long for people to start saying, “The effects are not good.” Anybody wonder why we have a mental health crisis right now in the State of New York and in the entire nation? Our kids are struggling with depression, suicidal thoughts particularly young girls who are under enormous pressure from other girls who can be hard on a good day. I raised a daughter. I was a teenage girl one time, and there's a lot of pressure on what you're wearing and who you're dating and who looked at who. There's a lot of pressure and to have that hit you all day long when you're supposed to be learning, makes it impossible to get the full education that we set you to school to receive.

And I'm convinced that we're going to have students emerge as more highly functioning adults. There will be eye contact — something that we've lost, lost art of looking at each other's faces when you communicate. They'll be able to work in groups in a collaborative way. They'll have in-person friendships. One student told me, “It's my first time I've had a friend in person.” She was in middle school. All her other friends were virtual, in the virtual world. She says, “I never had a friend in person until we took away the cell phones.”

The halls will be noisy again. Not always laughter, sometimes yelling, but at least they'll be communicating in the halls and in recess and in lunches. Lunch is when you're supposed to be making friendships and they're not doing that. As I said, I cannot say how overjoyed I am that we've reached this point in our state where we stood up for our students and we said, “We have to save them. We have to help them out.”

And I'll close with this one reflection from one teacher. She says — she was the drama teacher in the school — she says, “Kids weren't trying out for drama and theater and musical productions because they're afraid of other students videoing them, posting it and mocking it.” She says, “The number of students trying out for theater in their school plummeted.” Think about that. Think about that. It's all going to change starting this September, and that's what we're here to talk about. Melinda Person, tell us how you got here.