STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The long-time, controversial ban on cell phones in city schools was officially lifted Monday, weeks after Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina announced they would change the policy. Calling it an issue of student safety, Mayor de Blasio had promised to overturn the ban in September. "I think it is, for...
The city has officially lifted the cell phone ban in the public schools. (Staten Island Advance)STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The long-time, controversial ban on cell phones in city schools was officially lifted Monday, weeks after Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina announced they would change the policy.
Calling it an issue of student safety, Mayor de Blasio had promised to overturn the ban in September.
"I think it is, for parents, very, very important to know how to reach their kids, and we have to come up with a universal way to make sure that that opportunity is there for our young people," de Blasio said at the time. The mayor even acknowledged that his own son, Dante, a student at Brooklyn Technical High School, had used his cell phone in school to call home, in violation of the ban.
After the city had announced in January that the ban would be lifted on March 2, Staten Island students -- and parents -- declared the decision a "no-brainer.".
Staten Island school parents had long been opposed to the ban, enacted during the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, arguing it put students at a safety disadvantage, leaving them unable to contact a parent in case of an emergency.
"Many of the safety concerns involve traveling to and from schools, especially since there are no longer pay phones readily available," said Staten Island Community Education Committee (CEC) President Michael Reilly.
Each school will have an individualized policy determined by its principal, with input from parents and teachers.
Reilly said he expects that most Staten Island schools will continue to require that students keep their cell phones off and stored during the school day. "The only difference now is that they can carry cell phones into the building without them being confiscated, but if they use them in class, without authorization, they will probably get taken away."