New York’s crackdown on cellphones in schools sounds tough on paper.

In reality, it will fall apart without something far more important: discipline and family accountability.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push for bell-to-bell phone restrictions , which rolled out statewide in the 2025–26 school year, is being framed as a major step toward restoring focus in classrooms. The state says it’s about getting students off their screens and back to learning, while still requiring schools to give parents a way to contact their children during the day.

But here’s the truth from inside the classroom: You can collect every phone in the building by first period — and still have chaos by second.

Why? Because phones were never the root problem .

Phones were never the root problem in schools, writes teacher Dennis Richmond Jr. In schools where rules bend, enforcement is uneven, and consequences are negotiable, nothing works — phone ban or not. David McGlynn

I’ve worked as a teacher in Yonkers, Mount Vernon and New York City.…