Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul held a roundtable with Hudson Valley school leaders, parents and students to highlight their plans for implementing bell-to-bell smartphone restrictions when school resumes this fall. The roundtable included representatives of the Enlarged City School District of Middletown and Orange-Ulster BOCES — all of whom have already finalized their distraction-free policy. Today’s event follows previous roundtables held by the Governor this summer in New York City, the Capital Region, Central New York and the Finger Lakes.

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: The Governor’s Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

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

 We're delighted to be here, and I want to acknowledge Ed Estrada, our President of the Board of Education, to our education board members, school boards all across the State. I have great admiration for the work you do because I've been elected to do every level of government: town, county, federal, state — the only one I probably don't have the guts for is a school board, because you're in the line of fire.

It's hard work. It's so important, and you're the unsung heroes of keeping it all together for our students and our school districts. And so, I'm always grateful to people like Ed who step up and others.

Assemblywoman Paula Kay has joined us. Paula, thank you for participating and your support for this important legislation. And our Superintendent, Amy Creeden, the school district — I want to thank you. It's an extraordinary district. It has a phenomenal reputation and that starts with leadership from all of you here, and I'm happy you could join us.

And Deborah Heppes, the Chief Operating Officer of the BOCES here. But, we're talking about something that I'm absolutely passionate about. I've been on a journey since, probably a year and a half, almost two years now, to talk about the mental health challenges that our students are facing, young people are facing, unprecedented, and trying to figure out — are they experiencing higher levels of anxiety and depression and suicidal thoughts? Was it triggered by the pandemic and the isolation that they felt and that disconnect during really formative years in their lives?

And many of them being denied the rituals of life — the graduation from kindergarten, middle school to high school, and high school graduations and proms. And so, I think it had — any adult who thinks they're over the pandemic, talk to young people who experience it. They're not over it yet — I just need everybody right set on that one.

But also, this tracks the rise — over the last decade — of frequent, common use of cell phones in schools. Very few school districts stood up and said, “You can't do that,” because it became, really, the norm, and it was hard. It would've been hard to stand up and say, “We're the school that's going to do this,” or this school board, or the superintendent, or even parents saying, “My child will not be the one with the cell phone.”

There's a lot of peer pressure at many levels, and I understand that. So, it just continued. And what happened paralleling that was the rise in addictive algorithms being promoted by social media companies, and that was all about 10 years ago. And so, you can see a definite rise in addictive algorithms bombarding our students and their minds all day long.

The trajectory of that, with the rise in mental health problems — absolute direct correlation; and people are only now uncovering that fact. And it is very late for the current students who've been subjected to this for a long time — those who have already graduated, those who are older students — but I want to make sure we save the next generation of students who are with us today.

It's going to be a tough adjustment for many of them who are used to it, the younger ones not so much, but it's going to be like breaking an addiction all of a sudden. You've been smoking your whole life and people take the cigarettes away the next day — it is going to be hard. So, I need people to acknowledge that, recognize that parents need to be on board with talking to their kids, and school districts pushing out the information that we've been creating to tell parents weaning techniques.

One school superintendent said he is already starting with — Mondays are entirely cell phone free in their house. He actually said, “You know what surprised me? My teenagers started bringing out board games, and there were conversations at the breakfast table and the dinner table.” And he goes, “We hadn't had that in a long time, and I realized what our own practices at home were doing to our children.” And so, I'm encouraging parents to be really focused on this — it's going to be hard for the kids.

And for school districts, I can tell you right now and the media should be aware, there are going to be disruptions. The first day, there's going to be confusion: “What do you mean we have to lock it up? Where do we lock it up? What do we have to do?” So all the education you can do in advance is going to help, but there will be some school districts that have started and say there's a long line the first few days because they have to get people acclimated to it. So, expect some disruption.

Change is hard, it is hard, but as I did my research, and studied these trends, and talked to countless parents and students about what's happening in their lives, I know we're on the right path. And history will look back at us and say, “It is a shame it took so long.”

And education policy is not normally my jurisdiction, but I'm leaning into it because I'm also a mom, and I see what has happened to our young people and I just can't ignore the voices of those crying for help, including the student at a roundtable I did at the beginning of my journey. And she says, “We just can't put these down. We can't be the only ones. We'll be ostracized and we won't know what's happening. They're gathering in the girls' room and talking about me, and I have got to know that. I have got to know what they're saying about my clothes, and I want to be at the party on Friday.”

She says, “I cannot do that.” She says, “You have got to save us from ourselves. You've got to stop this.” And I was like, “That's all I needed to hear.” There was a cry for help from students, and we will get through this adjustment, and our kids will be smarter because they will be paying attention in class. Our poor teachers who are so frustrated with the competition, with teaching math and competing with the TikTok dance video — it's hard. You're going to lose every time, I'm afraid.

And so, teachers are frustrated. Parents are seeing a change in their children that they don't understand, and we're going to help them understand this is for the better, despite your initial anxiety of having that disconnect from your child. You're used to that umbilical cord that has followed them from pregnancy all the way through school, and it's not going to be there, but the school districts are very thoughtful about making sure that parents know that they should have a way for parents to reach their students during the day and vice versa.

There's a change in plans or you forget your school lunch — when we forgot our school lunch, we borrowed our friend's sandwich and paid them back the next day, or borrowed 50 cents. So actually, people will start talking to each other a little more. I think it's going to be good for the independence of students and all. Last thing is these students will emerge as more well-adjusted individuals and, ultimately, adults. They won't be conditioned to staring at a hand, they'll be used to making eye contact, they'll be used to conversations again.

Your halls are going to have noises you have not heard in years for the districts that have not gone first, and it's going to be beautiful, even if it's arguing and fighting or whatever — it's just more real as opposed to this virtual, artificial world, which our schools and students have descended into for a long time now. So, I'm very optimistic about this. I want to make sure we hear from our individuals here and ask President Estrada to take it away, but I just want to thank Middletown School District for being open-minded to this conversation and getting your information in on time.

Even adults sometimes are procrastinators, not just our students — and the vast, vast majority of school districts are there and a few others need some help from us, and we'll get there. But, thank you very much.