Worried parents have been keen to send their children to school with cellphones ever since the 9/11 terror attacks and mass shootings ushered in the new millennium. Now public officials are pushing back with complaints that students are using smartphones more for cyberbullying, video games and pornography than for talking or texting with Mom.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday became the latest public official to crack down on personal phones distracting students from learning. Kicking off a statewide “listening tour,” she promised to introduce a bill that would ban smartphones in schools, a move sure to spark pushback from some parents.

“The status quo is not working for our children in particular,” Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, said during an appearance at Guilderland High School, a short drive from the state Capitol. “And I want to make sure we continue to incorporate community feedback.”

According to Liz Repking of Cyber Safety Consulting, an Illinois-based company that works with schools to develop internet safety policies, there’s no legitimate reason for K-8 students to have smartphones at school and little cause for high schoolers to have them.

“My experience in the past school year is that the disruption to learning in the classroom is becoming insurmountable, especially for the most dedicated teachers,” Ms. Repking said.

She endorses a fast-growing practice of schools locking personal phones in pouches that can only be accessed before school, after dismissal or in emergencies requiring parental contact.

“Without question, the most effective approach is a complete ban on phones from entry to exit to the school,” Ms. Repking said. “This also means that students will not have access during passing periods, lunch and recess.”

Public and private schools nationwide started distributing digital tablets and laptops to students in the late 2000s, with many allowing personal phones in classes for educational purposes such as video projects. The trend peaked from 2020 to 2022 as schools switched to hybrid and virtual learning with livestreamed classes during pandemic lockdowns.

Over the past year, several states and large urban school districts have abruptly reversed course, moving to ban personal phones entirely. They cite a surge of anxiety, depression and misbehavior — including drug dealing and embarrassing videos of teachers posted online — in addition to declining test scores and the inability of overwhelmed faculty to police the issue.

To date, most schools have not backtracked on using approved tablets or laptops for some lessons, especially in math and sciences.

On the other hand, the move to purge cellphones has recently gained support from across the political spectrum:

• The Los Angeles Unified School District announced last month that all social media apps and cellphones will be off-limits to students by January 2025. The district cited a growing trend of students sitting alone during lunch, glued to their phones rather than socializing.

• The New York City Public Schools, the nation’s largest district with roughly 1 million students, has promised to announced a policy that may involve confiscating phones at the door each morning.

• Florida last year passed the first statewide law restricting student cellphones in public schools. Indiana and Ohio did the same this year.

• Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, last week issued an executive order that directs public school systems to restrict non-academic cellphone use by January.

Todd Reid, assistant superintendent for strategic communications at the Virginia Department of Education, noted data showing that suicide and depression rates have soared since 2010 as children now spend an average of 4.8 hours a day using social media apps.

He said many jurisdictions in the commonwealth have already banned social media. They include rural Louisa County, which implemented restrictions in 2008.

“Parents, family members, teachers, and even the kids can see that something is wrong,” Mr. Reid said in an email. “They see how children have withdrawn from spending time with friends to spending ever-increasing time with phones.”

Stewart D. Roberson, a former public middle and high school principal in Fredericksburg, said “time will tell” how well parents adapt to the forthcoming rules.

“There will be an adjustment period for everyone,” said Mr. Roberson, an education professor at the University of Virginia. “In response to the parental concerns about their children having access to their phones in emergency situations, the utilization of personal pouches is the current best practice being adopted by some districts.”

Public officials have flagged addiction to digital screens for driving a growing “youth mental health crisis” since pandemic restrictions shuttered k-12 schools in March 2020.

In an op-ed this month, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy asked Congress to slap a tobacco-style warning label on social media.

Despite the convenience of digital screens, Dr. Murthy pointed in a May 23 advisory to “ample indicators that social media can also pose a risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”

Mitch Prinstein, chief science officer at the American Psychological Association, said students need freedom from digital distractions to recover from pandemic learning losses. He noted that several European nations forbid personal phones in schools, including Great Britain and Italy.

“Science demonstrates that internet surfing during class time leads to lower grades, not just among the kid who is surfing, but for the kids sitting behind them too,” Mr. Prinstein said in an email. “It is important for parents to know that ’starter-phones’ like flip-phones still exist and are a great way to stay in touch with kids without giving them a distracting device that could affect their academic performance.”

Nevertheless, he said there is no evidence that smartphone use between classes either helps or hurts students.

At the federal level, the Department of Education has no position on mobile devices in schools.

“This is a state and local issue, not a federal one,” an Education Department spokesperson said in an email.

In January, the Education Department reported that 76% of public schools banned non-academic cellular use during school hours in the 2021-22 school year, the latest available data.

Recent reports suggest the number has grown since then.

In Ohio, a model cell phone policy that Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed in May bans phones “at all times” during school hours.

“It is about time, though that time should have been years ago,” said Ray Guarendi, a Catholic media personality and family psychologist based in Canton, Ohio. “No question, access to the whole world in the palm of a child’s hand does much more damage than just limiting academic performance.”

In Los Angeles, city officials will let each campus decide how to implement the ban on personal phones, including the option of placing them in a locker or pouch during school hours.

Laura DeCook, the California-based founder of mental health education company LDC Wellbeing, said she “strongly supports” such policies.

“Unmonitored phones can easily distract students, hindering their focus and learning,” said Ms. DeCook, who leads mental health workshops for families. “Additionally, they create opportunities for cheating, eroding the value of genuine academic effort.”

According to doctors, digital screens pose the greatest risk to younger children, who can develop social media addictions as early as the toddler years.

A study published this month in JAMA Network Open found that toddlers aged 18 to 32 months who played a popular digital app game interacted less with their parents and were less responsive to behavioral requests than those who played with a real toy.

Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician and the study’s lead author, said the findings highlight the need for children to interact face-to-face with each other “in real time and space” to ensure healthy social and emotional development.

“Schools need to provide a hotline for parents to be able to reach their children during school hours in case of emergency,” said Dr. Christakis, an investigator and professor at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute, affiliated with Seattle Children’s Hospital and the public University of Washington. “This is not a new approach; it’s what most of us grew up with and it worked just fine.”

David Griffith, an official at the National Association of Elementary School Principals, said the emergence of smartwatches poses additional challenges for schools that have already banned phones.

“As technology evolves, schools must continually adapt to ensure focused and effective learning environments while preparing students for a digital world,” said Mr. Griffith.

Some parental rights groups say cellphones have their advantages, however.

Sheri Few, president of the conservative U.S. Parents Involved in Education, said smartphones have helped some families hold schools accountable for political bias in classrooms.

“We [wonder] if this is actually an attempt to hide bad behavior by teachers and administrators, which has increasingly become apparent via student recordings,” Ms. Few said. “It is a shame, but some educators’ behavior justifies our concerns.”

• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.