One school says NY cell phone ban makes the grade

Williamsville, NY (WBEN) We're nearing the end of the first year of New York's ban on student cell phone use in schools bell to bell, and one high school says the report card is high marks for the policy.

"Our students have really risen to the occasion," says Williamsville North principal Andrew Bowen.. "We did a great job in articulating to our students the reason and to our families, the reason why bell to bell ban was necessary. Immediately, what we saw is an increase in student productivity, students doing their homework less certainly, less distracted on their cell phones with social media or or games, and students definitely have risen to the occasion and are doing a great job."

Art teacher Allison Ritter says the fact the blanket policy was statewide was really crucial. "It was difficult to implement sort of school to school, classroom to classroom, but the governor's edict really took away the questions people didn't argue about it, and the kids have really adopted it and integrated it into their school day. So I've found it's been remarkably helpful in so many different ways. The kids are talking to each other, they're playing board games in their lunch rooms and free periods. They're reading books. They're interacting with one another in person, and it's been really a refreshing, incredibly positive thing," says Ritter. She cites one other benefit. "I am no longer sort of competing for attention with the phone and and we certainly were much of the time," adds Ritter. "It has definitely made students a lot more attentive, a lot more engaged."

She says they're still using different kinds of technology. "It's not like we're tech free. We have Chromebooks in the classrooms, and, you know, students are using those to, you know, engage in the curriculum and in the classes, but it has sort of put like a line of demarcation between this is technology for school, and then this is technology for outside of school. And that has been a really helpful, I think, rule to enact," says Ritter.

Bowen says there's another benefit to the cell phone ban. "Looking at our library data for the entire year last year, versus up to this point in this school year, I have over a 50% increase in books being checked out, and that's across all different genres, graphic novels, historical fiction, horror, mystery, realistic fiction, science fiction, sports. So that's certainly a positive indicator that we have. In addition, I have over a 170% increase in terms of people take checking materials out that would include Chromebooks," adds Bowen.