B-Roll, Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Unveils Plan to Restrict Smartphone Use in Schools Statewide and Ensure Distraction-Free Learning in New York

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul stood with students, parents, teachers, social justice advocates and law enforcement officials to launch her push to restrict smartphone use in K-12 schools statewide. The unveiling of this new effort follows the introduction of this legislative proposal as part of Governor Hochul’s FY 2026 Executive Budget Proposal. Additionally, Governor Hochul today released a new report with recommendations gathered from her statewide listening tour this past year with students, parents and teachers regarding excessive smartphone use in schools. This effort continues Governor Hochul’s commitment to protecting youth mental health and promoting student success in the digital age, following her action last year to secure and sign a first-in-the-nation law to restrict addictive social media feeds for minors.

B-ROLL of the Governor speaking with educators and students about the distraction-free schools policy is available to stream on Youtube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

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: Photos of the event are available on the Governor’s Flickr page here.

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

Yes, we're in a school — please silence your cell phones. Great to be here with an extraordinary list of individuals who worked so hard to get us to this day. I want to, first of all, recognize Melinda Person. She is the leader of our teachers — NYSUT, President NYSUT — but really has used her voice as a champion for our students in making sure that they have the best outcomes in their educational experience. And we're at this place, a school she's familiar with — she can talk about her being a student here many years ago, no, just a handful of number of years ago — and what it was like then and what brought us here today. So I want to thank her for her incredible leadership, let's give her another round of applause.

I want to acknowledge Senator Pat Fahy, who you'll be hearing from her shortly. Again, another fighter for this region and I'm really pleased to see you ascend to the new title — Senator Fahy, let's welcome her as well.

Our County Executive Dan McCoy, who's always been there for us, and our Sheriff, and others — Craig Apple and others. And our people from law enforcement who've joined us here today, because this is also an issue that we need law enforcement to help get over the finish line. This is really important that your voices are here — as they have been — to help explain to parents why this is for the safety of their children as well, so I thank you for being part of this.

Mike Laster — the Principal of Farnsworth Middle School — has done an extraordinary job here. I want to thank him for his leadership, and you can just tell when I walk into a building, I get a good sense of the feeling of the young people here and they're very positive and optimistic, and a principal certainly sets the tone. I want to thank you for that as well as Dr. Maureen Wiles — our superintendent of schools for the Guilderland School District — thank you for your leadership as well.

You will also be hearing from Anika Bhupati. I want to talk about her for a second — extraordinary eighth grader, who — I want to get this right, she's on the championship team of the competition for U.S. Future Cities, okay? Now, you're the defending international champions? Can I repeat that? The defending international champions are right here of the Future City competition. I'm hoping to watch a game this weekend and be closer to a national championship for my team. So, these championships mean a lot to me as well. But thank you for what you're doing. She wants to go on and be a lawyer someday, and we're talking about the great opportunities that are open when you secure that law degree, so you're absolutely on the right path. Very proud of what you're doing.

You'll also be hearing from Roberto Rijos, Vice President of the Parent Teacher Association. PTA has been so important in validating the importance of doing this, and being that connective tissue between these policies, and the students, and teachers and the parents that you represent. So Roberto, I want to thank you for your work here as well.

Steven James — our Superintendent of the State Police — again, he'll put an exclamation point on why this is important to the law enforcement community, that we get the messages out. And so, I want to acknowledge we have a very robust speaking program, but this is so important that we talk about what's behind this policy, and let's recognize the fact that all across America a war is being waged for our children's minds — it's that profound.

Kids are being besieged with addictive algorithms, toxic social media and cell phones that just can be so manipulative that it becomes addictive like a drug. And these young people, and I've heard them, I just talked to some more — they're calling for help. They're literally calling us for help. And as the adults in the room, the policymakers, it's our job to pick up that call and then put down that phone. That's what we're talking about here today.

So, I'm very cognizant of how we'll be judged in the future for what we do today in our respective roles, and I believe we'll be judged harshly if we don't look at the data that is so overwhelming of the negative impact of social media and cell phones on children's developmental abilities to function not just as kids, but ultimately as adults. And how so many times that these social media platforms have had a profoundly negative impact on our children's mental health, especially the young girls who are contemplating suicide and experiencing depression at higher rates than ever before.

There's something going on here and we can no longer turn a blind eye to it. We have to be the ones who — when history looks back — are the ones who stood up, who waged this fight and protected the future leaders of our state. And I'm so proud to be here today, as we put an end to digital distractions in our classrooms.

Last year, many of you know, and I was with Melinda in person many times, we crisscrossed the state. We had roundtables, listening sessions, talked to everyone involved — parents, teachers, students. principals, school board members, superintendents. But the voices that meant the most to me were those students, and what they told me was that they're distracted, it's hard to focus. And you cannot be the first student to put down your phone and say, "I don't want to do this anymore." You would be ostracized for the rest of your life.

I know that peer pressure is intense. I raised teenagers, I have a lot of teenagers in my family, I see what they're going through. And they cannot be the only one, ever. But as a group, you can normalize the fact that, yes, it's okay to talk to a student in the lunch cafeteria because you're not distracted. I just talked to students now. I asked them, “What has been the difference since this school had the courage to stand up and, starting in September, had the policy?”

We're willing to go into a place that very few schools have gone — and I thank, again, our principal and our Superintendent. Those students told me that kids are talking to each other in the cafeteria and between classes. And think about that — for that to be rather an earth-shaking announcement tells you how silent it was before. And that's what I've heard from so many principals. They say we're hearing noises in the halls again, laughter — sometimes the kids are pushing and shoving, but you know what? They're not glued to this. And for their developmental and emotional well-being, it is so much more positive for them to have human connections and make friends that otherwise would not be their friends, because their only friends live in a virtual world.

That's what I heard here already just walking through the door. I want to hear that noise again in every school across the state. But, kids are also missing an education. They miss what's being written on the blackboard — whatever you use these days, whiteboards. They're focusing more on memes instead of math. And they're falling behind because how could they not? As adults, you're supposed to be doing your job all day, but all day long you're on your cell phone. You're not being very productive. You're not engaging, you're not learning. It’s happening at exponentially higher levels with our kids. So, let's help them, and this is an individual who stepped up way before it was popular to talk about that — NYU Professor Jonathan Haidt. He wrote in a book called, “The Anxious Generation,” which I recommend to all of you.

He said, “The never-ending stream of interruptions takes a toll on adolescents’ ability to think, and may leave permanent marks on their rapidly reconfiguring brains.” Let's talk from the perspective of a teacher — Meinda will share this with you. But a recent poll showed that 72 percent of high school teachers across the nation said that cell phones were a major distraction for their students.

None of you look really old, but, I know that when you are students, you didn't have to deal with this — your teachers didn't have to compete, did they? The focus was on you as a student. And I heard from frustrated teachers who said, “I used to be able to stand there and I'd try to create a connection, a bond with the students starting in September, so by the end of the year, they knew that I believed in them, I would fight for them, I was their best champion, I wanted them to have that trust — that bond that's so important between a teacher and a student.” He says, “I can't get that anymore. I don't have that, and it's really taken away the joy of being a teacher.”

One of our elected officials, assemblymember, is a teacher who says, “I don't want to teach anymore. It's not what I thought I was getting into. I'm just fighting all day long, competing.” It's not fair to our teachers either. They're working so hard every day, and they shouldn't have to compete with a device that was never there when they went to school or their parents went to school. So, we listened to them.

The fact that 95 percent of teenagers have a cell phone and there's 250 notifications on average every day, that's 250 times the cell goes off, makes that noise, distracts you, pulls your attention — you don't know what it is. Adults, we're guilty of the same, right? I'm going to leave a little lesson here for moms and dads, lead by your own example. Even if you have a busy job, like you're a County Executive, right? You’ve got a busy job. When the kids are around you, let them know who's most important in your life. You can get back to that call. Your kids are watching you. What do you value? What's important to you? And they need to know they're at the top of that list. And your spouses or your partners, they need to know that too.

So, it is a sign that I hear from my husband every once in a while, “Can you just put it down?”

“Well, we're doing the Budget, we're doing State of the State.”

But you know what? People are important too. And a cell phone, when you're sitting there like this and they're sitting here, says that this is more important than that person. I think we're better than that, and I want us to role model that for our kids as well. And they'll get that, they'll understand.

And those of you who've been listening to me on this journey for well over a year now know I've said this before, so the press can count how many times I've said this. One of their favorite pastimes, “How many times is she going to say this again?”

But we were not far from here, maybe 40 minutes from here at a school when I first started. And we gathered in a library. Bright young women, and one of them was describing the stress of being glued to that cell phone. She says, “I have to know what they're saying about me. Are they mocking out what I'm wearing today? Are the girls all gathering in the restroom and I'm not being included? What's going to happen over the weekend? Am I being excluded from plans? And someone else is being bullied and I need to know what's going on.”

And I'm like, “Do you guys ever think about your studies or subjects?”

“No, there's so much going on there.”

And I said, “Why are you guys letting this happen?”

And she said, “You have to save us from ourselves. We can't be the ones to put this down,” they can't be the first.

And I said, “I get it. I get it.”

This won't be easy. But as a mom, I know we have to make the tough decisions to do what's right for kids. This is ingrained in our DNA as adults, some of us as parents and certainly as leaders, it's our responsibility to hear the child's call for help and do something about it. And they feel so trapped in this world that their whole social existence is on social media and on their cell phone.

We have to get this right. And that's why I'm so proud to propose in my Budget a comprehensive new policy to make every single school, every single public school in the State of New York, distraction free.

And we're going to make sure there are no smartphones, no watches, no tablets, no beeps or dings in that sacred space where children need to be learning between the bell in the morning and the bell in the afternoon. That's how we start saving these kids. That's how we start changing their academic outcomes. That's how we help make them more integrated into society and be fully functioning adults when they graduate. That's our job — not to raise kids, but to raise adults; help them emerge as fully functioning adults who can have social interactions.

And many of these kids were paralyzed by the pandemic. And I'm proud that I was the Governor who brought students back to school, who said, “You need to be in a classroom. You need to be learning.” And I just heard from one of the students now, one of the teachers, who told me she says they're still affected by the pandemic when they were so disconnected, but became so reliant on this for their very existence. And now that carries over all these years later. They can't break the addiction.

So, that's what this proposal will achieve — freedom for these kids, freedom for parents to know that their kids are learning. You don't have to worry about them, they're going to be okay. They're not being pulled into this dark space. It's better for your own children's mental health. It's good for the teachers. It's good for the environment. And that's why we will apply this bell-to-bell.

And I said, some places say, we'll leave it up to schools. We can do that. I have about a hundred schools, maybe 26 in this area that have done this. But I have hundreds and hundreds of schools that have not, because it's hard. You don't want to be on that school board or maybe the school superintendent or somebody's going to be mad about it and you've got enough to worry about. So, if you need someone to be the heavy, it's my job, right? Let me be the person who says, I'm putting our kids first. I'm putting the mental health of our children first.

And we'll let each individual school district develop how they want to store devices. I saw some opportunities in some of the classes. I saw some examples, ensure compliance. We're not going to tell you what to do there. But I'll tell you this, there's another dynamic as a parent whose kids were young during Columbine. That nightmare — your worst nightmare that something happens with a shooting on your child's campus, whether in their school, grade school, even kindergartens it happens.

And our law enforcement is here because they have a message. They understand that real feeling because these are parents as well. They understand that need to be connected to your child. But if there is a mass casualty event or a shooter on the grounds, the last thing you want to have is your child fumbling for their cell phone, pulling it out, maybe they think they need to be texting their friends first or sending messages to their friends first, maybe even videoing it because “I'm going to be the one who captures this,” and guess what, that distraction can mean that they're not safe. They've lost their focus on the person in the front of the room who is trained to take care of them and get them to safety.

And I didn't know that until I heard that from law enforcement, and all of a sudden I realized — the light went off in my head, I said, “That's right. And if parents knew that and understood that, they wouldn't be thinking they need to have this connection all day long.” And make sure that every school will have some way to reach your parents and parents can reach you. Yes, things happen. Things happen. Of course, you're going to have that access. But it doesn't have to be in your hand or in your pocket all day long. It's time to cut that cord and let our kids be kids and let them ultimately become adults.

So, we will have a requirement that all the schools have a way that parents can reach their kids and vice versa when it's necessary.

And we want parents involved in this. You know, this is what every school district has to do. That's what the principal here told me they did. They had meetings with parents, and the PTA meetings were so important to this. Education is everything.

But also, law enforcement — you know we need your voices.This continues standing up, and law enforcement is on board with this. And they know they want to be able to focus on the safety of the children.

And I'm also proud that there's advocates like the NAACP. We have Anthony Harmon, who's the president of the education sector of the NAACP for New York City. I want to thank him for doing this. Anthony has an important perspective to make sure that the application of this is not discriminatory — that some schools are not suspending kids and not letting them come back, and another school is going to say, “Okay, little slap on the wrist, you're okay.” That's not fair.

That's why this has failed in the past for others who've thought of this. Failure is not an option for us. We're going to get this right. We spent a lot of time on this, bringing together all the voices that need to be at the table, and I want to make sure that everyone pays close attention to what Mr. Harmon says as well. So I want to make sure that every child, regardless of their skin color, is treated the same when it comes to the application of this, regardless of what school you're in. So, that's important to me.

And we'll be releasing a report on the insights and all these listening sessions and an implementation guide. I encourage all of you to take a look at this, and we'll come back. I'm going to keep evaluating this. You know, one year from now we'll talk about this, and the year after we'll talk about it, and the year after we'll talk about it. We're going to talk about progress being made.

But, if you talk to Principal Laster right now, he's going to have an important perspective to tell you. And I'm really proud that we're going to do this, and by September every school will have a policy in the State of New York. Clearly we'll have exceptions if there's medical needs, or for an academic reason, or a child that needs this for, because of a disability, or there's language challenges, English is not a first– of course we're going to make those exceptions. This is not punitive — we're just trying to get it right.

And to support purchasing and whatever support the school district will have, I've already put $13.5 million in our Budget to help the school districts to acquire some storage options at their own choice.

But all I know is that when I hear kids in need, and I hear teachers, and I hear parents, and I hear others who need something done — I don't mind, I'll step into that fray. I'll always do what I think is right. And this one — having distraction-free classrooms across the entire State of New York, joining only eight other states that have gone this far — will show our leadership, will show how we prioritize our kids and their mental health and our kids and their learning abilities, and that'll demonstrate our values as New Yorkers.

And I'm proud of what we did there, I'm proud of what we've done on social media, teaming up with Attorney General Tish James, our Safe Kids, Safe for All Act — first state in the nation to successfully fight off the social media companies that wanted to keep that death grip on your children all day long. And we said “No. No addictive algorithms for children under the age of 18. We're going to free them from this grasp.” And we did that successfully. And now the U.S. Senate has followed the same. So, change is possible.

And I'm here to say the winds of change have definitely shifted. The fact that we're here today announcing this to be fully effective, you can start next week if any school district wants to. This is not stopping it. Let's get started. Let's make sure that we're focused on this. And let's do this for our children.

Thank you, everybody.