By Brendan Rose
Just after 8 last Tuesday morning, Andrew Wintner, the principal of West End Secondary School, took his place next to the front doors on West 61st Street to greet students as they arrived. Middle school and high school students soon began to stream in, some holding iced coffees or energy drinks in one hand, their smartphones in the other. This year, Wintner is not there in the early hours just to give out fist bumps and morning greetings; he’s also at the front door to help enforce New York state’s new cellphone policy, a bell-to-bell prohibition on cell phone and smartwatch usage on school grounds.
As students arrive at West End Secondary each morning, they pull out neoprene pouches with a built-in locking mechanism at the opening. Students hold the pouches up to a strong, specially designed magnet, which unlocks the mechanism. After sliding their devices inside, they present the pouches to Wintner or other monitors at the front doors, closing each one until it locks with a distinctive click. Students can keep the pouches with them the rest of the day, but they are not to be unlocked until the day’s final bell.
As Wintner casually chatted with his students, he listened for the click of the lock, gently calling back a few students who had not fully locked their pouches.
“What we don’t want is like that first interaction to be a negative one,” said Wintner. “Even though we are asking them to put their phones in the Yondr pouch [Yondr is the brand name], we are not raising our voices…we are not being negative towards them, we’re using it as a way to build relationship and make sure they feel seen as they come into the building.”
The statewide policy gives schools discretion for how they enforce the ban, with some schools opting to confiscate phones at the start of the day and others requiring students to lock their phones in lockers or keep them in locked pouches throughout the day. The new protocols can be a bit slow, and they are not without a few hitches. At West End Secondary students who arrive without a pouch have to drop off their phones at the main school office and return to retrieve them at the end of the day. One student showed up last week with a pouch with ragged holes; apparently, the family’s pit bull had torn it up.
West Side Rag surveyed schools on and near the Upper West Side with students in the 6th grade or above who would be most affected by the policy. Among the schools that responded, the majority said they were collecting phones from students at the start of the day and holding them til the final bell, though three schools with high school age students – West End Secondary, Columbia Secondary School, and Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School – had all opted for pouches. Notably, a majority of the middle schools contacted stated that a phone policy had already been in place prior to the new state law.
The city has allocated $16 million to schools to implement the policy and anticipates continued costs throughout the fiscal year, earmarking a total of $25 million. The cost per student comes out to $25.90, and according to their budget, West End Secondary will spend approximately $20,000.
“I am kind of torn on it,” said Rebecca Saltzman, the mother of 6th graders just starting at Booker T. Washington Middle School, on West 107th Street, where phones are collected in the homeroom at the start of each day and only handed back at the end of classes. “I agree that kids should not be having their phones out in class and that could be a real distraction, and that kind of thing. But on the other hand, I do like that my kids can reach me if anything happens during the day. That is kind of reassuring to me.”
Saltzman has two older children who attend a high school in another neighborhood, where the phone ban operates more on an honor system. Despite a requirement that students lock up phones in their lockers, she says that many students circumvent the rule by carrying their phones out of sight. Also, her children still have access to personal laptops for class work, and they text her throughout the day via their computers, she says.
Even at schools with stricter policies, some students say there are ways to circumvent the rules. At West End Secondary, some put fake or burner phones in pouches, according to senior Jonah Guthartz.
“I have definitely seen people slide wallets into the Yondr pouch and lock it and then walk in with a locked pouch,” said Guthartz.
“For some kids, like having your phone for so long, and using it in your everyday life, especially in school, and it’s just taken, just one random day, it’s hard,” said Carter Chatfield, another senior at West End Secondary.
Students at other schools in the city have reported that some are using brute force to open the pouches, smashing the lock to pry it open. The locking mechanism, which is similar to the security tags used in some clothing stores, can easily be opened with a strong magnet. Bottom line: If motivated enough, students can find a way around the pouch, though they risk consequences if caught.
West End Secondary has a pretty low tolerance for students caught with their phones out. On the first offense, the phone is confiscated, and parents have to come to the school to retrieve it. Wintner confirmed that some students had already been caught with their phones out, though he said there were fewer violations than he had expected.
“I feel like that’s a pretty drastic step one,” said Guthartz. “I feel like that has normally been step three.”
But Wintner said disciplinary action for repeat violations of the phone ban would never rise to the level of suspensions. And students at West End Secondary characterized the phone ban as largely an inconvenience, one that makes working on homework posted to online portals or seeing messages about classroom changes more difficult. For high schoolers especially, the policy could limit their ability to communicate with parents, coaches, tutors, or employers. One student said they missed listening to music during breaks. Dismissals can be a bit chaotic as students crowd wall-mounted magnets to unlock their pouches, according to West End students.
Before the school year started, West End Secondary held outreach sessions to talk to parents, where some expressed concerns about not being able to contact students in case of an emergency, according to Wintner. He assured them that protocols were in place to allow administrators to unlock pouches in such cases.
“The students in this building are so incredibly resilient and quick to adapt to things if they understand the rationale,” said Wintner.
According to Wintner, teachers at West End Secondary have, by and large, welcomed the changes. With phones locked up, they have reported seeing a spike in deeper participation. “I’ve heard teachers say there is more laughter, there’s more relaxation, there’s more joy,” said Wintner.
“I cannot express to you how different the vibes or the aura is in this building without just seeing students locked into their phones,” he said. “Actually seeing their faces, seeing their facial expressions, watching them be vulnerable with each other and their teachers is really quite moving.”
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I made it through kindergarten, nursery school, elementary school, middle school, high school, college, and graduate school without ever having to call my parents during school hours.
Real emergencies are rare and the school can contact a parent if necessary.
People need to get a grip.
I thought dumb flip phones were still allowed, or the Lightphone.
It’s smartphones that aren’t allowed. No looking up something to contradict the text.
I’m a parent with children who went through middle school and are now in high school.
My children didn’t use phones in either school. I don’t understand why so much money has to be spent on those pouches. Pouches or not, students can always find ways to circumvent the rules.
Some students now even carry more than one phone so they can submit one and keep the others.
Pouches are not the solution—proper discipline and rules are.
I have nieces in high school in the Midwest and they drop off their phones at the office in the morning and pick them up at dismissal. One niece brought her phone into class and it fell out of her pocket and the school kept it until the end of the semester. I think a lot of time, effort, and money is being wasted on too many things in NYC.
The irony is how parents during the Bloomberg era fought to end a cell phone ban and were strongly against Bloomberg’s cell phone ban.
How is that ironic?
Some parents, but not all, fought back then and are fighting now.
I am concerned something will happen, NYCDOE will bungle it under Mamdani and then there will be a renewed push to get rid of the Yondr pouches.
Great news! Long overdue. Social media has destroyed an entire generation of kids. It’s time to bring them back home.
For the history of society children and parents functioned without kids having phones in school. Kids can continue to survive without them. I have two children impacted by this and though they grumble a bit, they are fine with it. If there is a true emergency where I need to reach my children, I can call the school office. Once in a blue moon there is a very specific reason why a kid might need a phone and the principals should be empowered to deal with this.
I kind of understand those who question why money has to be spent on yonder pouches rather than having a “no phones out” rule in place with clear consequences for violations.
The whining about this is just out of control. I wish this was my biggest problem…
I am a teacher in a school that has been using Yondr for many years. Before that, we did have a no-phones-out policy. We ended up spending more time dealing with cell phone infractions than anything else, including teaching, Yondr has helped a lot. Yes, students do a lot of things to try to circumvent them, but it would be helpful if parents were helpful too. There is absolutely NOTHING that a parent would NEED (do we have to teach parents the difference between need and want?) to contact their kid about during school hours that they wouldn’t have to call the main office about anyway. If grandma died and you need to pick your kid up early, you have to call the main office. If you text your kid and they go into the office and tell them grandma died, the office will send the kid back to class. If you call the main office, then either you can be the one to break the news when you pick them up, or a guidance counselor would be the one to do it – not a text message the kid will get in the middle of class. If their afterschool class is cancelled, they can get the message when they unYondr their phones at the end of the day. But these days, most bullying happens on phones, not in person. Most fights break out because of what was typed on phones, not what was said in person. I have a kid in high school myself. He doesn’t NEED a phone. None of them do. I have been teaching since before the iPhone. Since smartphones, the ability of students to take a concept and apply it to a situation of which the concept easily applies but they hadn’t been directly taught the application has dropped considerably. These days, if they were taught about about apples, the concept only applies to apples unless Google AI assistant tells them it applies to oranges too.
I don’t know that there is (as of yet) a perfect solution that will cover all eventualities, but I DO think that working to limit (or eliminate altogether) use of cellphones by students during school hours is a good thing. Children today – and especially teens – are so conditioned to look at their screen and check their phone and be distracted by it, that it is important we help them have less access to their phone during school hours. It is not a new thing or a unique thing. Other countries implement it, too. Should contingencies for emergencies be put in place? Absolutely. But having students available to ENGAGE in person is a good thing.
Bad news for neurotic helicopter mommies and daddies who need up-to-the-minute updates. Great news for more reasonable parents wishing for a return to normalcy with less distraction in the classroom.