August 25, 2025 • 12 mins
After much debate and delay, NY City Public Schools begin a ban on personal internet enabled devices as of the 2025-26 school year. With the bell-to-bell ban, students will not have access to cell phones, personal tablets or smart watches during the school day. What should parents, teachers, and most importantly, students expect? Our guest is Dr. Curtis Palmore, CEO of United Charter High Schools, who has implemented bell-to-bell cell phone bans at every school he’s led over the past decade, including the seven high schools in his network, as of 2024.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven Light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thanks for listening to Get Connected. After much debate and delay,
New York City public schools begin a ban on personal
internet devices as of this fall, so cell phones, tablets,
smartwatches are banned during the school day. What should parents, teachers,
and students expect. Our guest is doctor Curtis Palmore, CEO
of United Charter High Schools, who has implemented Bell to
(00:34):
Bell's cell phone bands at every school he's led over
the past decade, including the seven high schools in his network.
Doctor Curtis Palmore, thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Thank you so much. It's really exciting to be here.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
The United Charter High School Network includes seven public charter
high schools in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queen serving nearly
three thousand students with a ninety five percent graduation rate
ninety percent plus attendance, and five schools ran in the
top twenty five in New York State by NICHE. You
can find out more about those schools at United Charter
dot org. For listeners who are unfamiliar with United Charter
(01:09):
high schools, maybe you could give us a little bit more,
doctor palmore about the mission, the school and the students.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Sure, so our schools we have seven schools is noted
across the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens very fortunate to have
a focus that focuses on a number of areas that
ultimately are positioning our students for college and career readiness.
Are focused through our curriculum, through civic engagement, through steam,
(01:37):
through deep dives with literacy, and then we have a
plethora of after school programming that provide our students just
the well rounded education and art and academics, and they're
also at athletic programs. And we've also have been very
fortunate to have a structure where almost fifty percent of
our students are receiving advanced placement courses that are really
(02:00):
positioning in them for the next stages in their and
their post secondary careers.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
So, before a bell to bell cell phone ban was
passed in the New York State budget in May, you've
been an advocate for this policy. You already had a
ban at all United Charter high schools as of last
year what inspired you to implement that policy?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Well?
Speaker 4 (02:18):
As a former principal, this was something that I implemented
at my schools over a decade ago, And largely I
implemented this because I saw at the time that students
were being students were being distracted by their learning. Teachers
were spending way too much time just redirecting students, and
what an effort to focus on to getting students to
(02:41):
be focused on learning.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
And when I joined the.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Organization two years ago, we actually had several of our
schools that did allow to have cell phone and it
was really interesting. When I did a school tour, I
went to this student lounge area and I was just
getting to know students and teachers, and I noticed that
every single student in the lounge area had their head
(03:06):
down and they were focused on their phones.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
And I just thought about my high school experience. I
thought about the high school.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Experience I would work for my own children, and I said,
you know, this is really interesting that every single student
is engaged on their personal device as opposed to actually
conversing one another talking about their classes or things that
might be, you know, part of their student life experience.
And in couple with that, I noticed that in those
(03:33):
schools that didn't have the cell phone band, that a
number of the teachers during lessons were reminding students to
put their cell phones away. So it just made common
sense that we would think about the following year having
a structure in place where that we could alleviate that
issue of having a distraction with learning, and that following
(03:54):
year we implement it across all seven schools and we're
seeing tons of benefits. Teachers are elated about the fact
that you know, there's a structure behind us students, even
though some students have given some pushback about it. A
good amount of students are connecting more with their peers.
They're finding having more authentic conversations, particularly during their lunch
(04:18):
and their free periods or their and that we're also
seeing a lot of positive free feedback from families as well.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So in practice, how does the cell phone ban work?
Speaker 3 (04:29):
So we have two policies.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
One of our policies is that our students are given
what's known as a Yonder pouch.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yonder is a company that makes them.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
You may have seen those in sporting events and concert
Their students have that Yonder pouch on their person and.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
They put it in on a way to school.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
We have a device that kind of opens it up
and closes it, and they can open and close it
when they leave and enter the building. We have another
policy in some of our schools where the phones are collected,
they're stored in safe space, and then they're giving back.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
And then for.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Either structure, we've developed systems in the event of emergency,
which is kind of the biggest area that most where
students could ultimately have access to their phones within minutes,
and those structures are built out within our schools.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Since you've been doing this, you know, implementing this practice
over the past decade, and you know other schools are
sort of getting it together and crafting their policies. What
advice would you give them?
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Well, I think I think the devil is in the details,
so to speak, and I really think that schools should
think very thoughtfully about all of the details that need
to be executed in terms of communicating the policy to
the school stakeholders, in terms of personnel that could support
with any of the collection or any of the tools
(05:52):
that you're going to be utilizing. And then I think
you need to also think about, you know, what are
the things that for any policy major of the folks
within the school system or school structure. So you also
kind of have to think about, like what is that
ten percent that might struggle with the buying to this policy,
Like what are you doing to support those? So I
(06:13):
think thoughtfully around those areas.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Our guest is doctor Curtis Palmore, CEO of United Charter
High Schools, which implemented a network Bell to Bell's cell
phone ban as of twenty twenty four. We're speaking to
him as New York City public schools prepare for the
district wide cell phone ban effective this semester. You can
find out more about ucchs at United Charter dot org.
You're listening to get connected on one six point seven
(06:38):
light FM. I'mna del Rio. I also want to ask
you about a couple other topics. Sure, So, you recently
wrote an Amsterdam News op at about DEI, specifically inclusion
in New York City schools. There has been a backlash
to DEI recently. Why is it such a priority for UCHS?
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Well, I think it's it's a priority because it's ingrained
and just our kind of.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Ethos as an organization.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
You know, part of our work is that we serve
in the communities that we serve. We serve a diverse
body of students and families, and it's important that because
we're serving this diverse body of students and families, that
we create structures and systems so that every learner and
every family that is part of organization feels welcomed and
(07:27):
feels like they are included in the work and sometimes
the decisions and the work that we're doing collect living
in our organization. And that includes the largely black and
brown youth that we serve, That includes the ENGOs angus learners,
the students that with disabilities that we could that includes
the students that may be part of the lgbt, t I,
(07:50):
t q I A plus community like we want to
ensure that every learner feels like they're a part of
our organization.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
As you mentioned in your own while many schools and
organizations launched DEI initiatives in the last few years, yes,
a fair amount of those sadly would show over substance.
So speaking about your schools, what does real inclusion look
like in practice? Can you give an example?
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (08:15):
So you know, I think, which is because this is
actually happening in the next couple of days, but we
have our systems, our structures in the schools where our
students are welcomed. New students that come to our schools
are welcomed to an experience prior to the start of
the school year. We give them opportunities to connect with staff,
(08:38):
to get to know the curriculum. They have like team
building experiences, and we design this experiences so that our
students feel welcomed. We designed these experiences so that students,
particularly students that might need like a little bit extra
supports around some of the academic and social areas of school,
(09:00):
that they feel they have an opportunity to connect there.
We also use this as an opportunity to kind of
think about pathways of support for the students throughout the
four years that they're in our schools.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Finally, I'd like to ask you briefly about another hot topic,
which is ai AI there's goods, there's bad. How are
you approaching it at your schools?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
So you know, we're fortunate on a couple of so
first off, as an organization, we developed a system called
a structure called the network Inquiry Teams. Our network increy
teams are teams of adults that work in our schools
from varied levels from out the seven schools, and also
a central office team that essentially come together to think
(09:47):
about forward thinking ways to develop forward thinking strategies around
a variety of topics. And we decided this last year
to develop a network inquiry team that it's focused on
the use of AI in our schools. We had a
team of really dedicated, amazing adults that ultimately, throughout their
(10:09):
work through an entire year of meeting, developed a playbook
that essentially provides strategies and structures for our entire network
in terms of how to implement in a safe, in
a productive way, the use of AI. We've seen across
the country. We're seeing through headlines and major news outlets
(10:33):
that AI is being abused in so many ways, and
we wanted to get ahead of that. We wanted to
think about ways that our school communities, particularly our students,
can utilize AI in a very productive and safe way.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You're primarily speaking about students, but I also want to
ask you briefly, just in our last couple of minutes
about teachers. Right I was reading this week about how
teachers are saving time with lesson planning and grading. What
opportunities does AI actually present for your staff.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
Yeah, so you know, we are very very excited. One
of our schools, Humanities too in the Bronx, they have
actually received a grant from Leading Educators and the Learning Accelerator,
and that grant is specifically focused on professional development opportunities
for the use of AI, and right now we're working
(11:21):
on a very specific project on reducing teacher workload, helping
to personalize the learning experiences, and then utilizing AI to
support just the overall kind of equity work that's connected
to schools. And we're really excited that this grant is
helping us to be a forefront, forefront network.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Anything you can do to lighten the load on teachers
and give them more breathing spaces.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
As welcome for sure. For sure.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Our guest has been doctor Curtis Pellmore, the CEO of
United Charter High Schools. Their website is United Charter dot org.
Have a great school year and thank you for being
to get connected.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Thank you so much, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
This has been and get connected with Nina del Rio
on one oh six point seven Light FM. The views
and opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the
views of the station. If you missed any part of
our show or want to share it, visit our website
for downloads and podcasts at one oh six to seven
lightfm dot com. Thanks for listening.
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven Light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thanks for listening to Get Connected. After much debate and delay,
New York City public schools begin a ban on personal
internet devices as of this fall, so cell phones, tablets,
smartwatches are banned during the school day. What should parents, teachers,
and students expect. Our guest is doctor Curtis Palmore, CEO
of United Charter High Schools, who has implemented Bell to
(00:34):
Bell's cell phone bands at every school he's led over
the past decade, including the seven high schools in his network.
Doctor Curtis Palmore, thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Thank you so much. It's really exciting to be here.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
The United Charter High School Network includes seven public charter
high schools in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queen serving nearly
three thousand students with a ninety five percent graduation rate
ninety percent plus attendance, and five schools ran in the
top twenty five in New York State by NICHE. You
can find out more about those schools at United Charter
dot org. For listeners who are unfamiliar with United Charter
(01:09):
high schools, maybe you could give us a little bit more,
doctor palmore about the mission, the school and the students.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Sure, so our schools we have seven schools is noted
across the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens very fortunate to have
a focus that focuses on a number of areas that
ultimately are positioning our students for college and career readiness.
Are focused through our curriculum, through civic engagement, through steam,
(01:37):
through deep dives with literacy, and then we have a
plethora of after school programming that provide our students just
the well rounded education and art and academics, and they're
also at athletic programs. And we've also have been very
fortunate to have a structure where almost fifty percent of
our students are receiving advanced placement courses that are really
(02:00):
positioning in them for the next stages in their and
their post secondary careers.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
So, before a bell to bell cell phone ban was
passed in the New York State budget in May, you've
been an advocate for this policy. You already had a
ban at all United Charter high schools as of last
year what inspired you to implement that policy?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Well?
Speaker 4 (02:18):
As a former principal, this was something that I implemented
at my schools over a decade ago, And largely I
implemented this because I saw at the time that students
were being students were being distracted by their learning. Teachers
were spending way too much time just redirecting students, and
what an effort to focus on to getting students to
(02:41):
be focused on learning.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
And when I joined the.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Organization two years ago, we actually had several of our
schools that did allow to have cell phone and it
was really interesting. When I did a school tour, I
went to this student lounge area and I was just
getting to know students and teachers, and I noticed that
every single student in the lounge area had their head
(03:06):
down and they were focused on their phones.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
And I just thought about my high school experience. I
thought about the high school.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Experience I would work for my own children, and I said,
you know, this is really interesting that every single student
is engaged on their personal device as opposed to actually
conversing one another talking about their classes or things that
might be, you know, part of their student life experience.
And in couple with that, I noticed that in those
(03:33):
schools that didn't have the cell phone band, that a
number of the teachers during lessons were reminding students to
put their cell phones away. So it just made common
sense that we would think about the following year having
a structure in place where that we could alleviate that
issue of having a distraction with learning, and that following
(03:54):
year we implement it across all seven schools and we're
seeing tons of benefits. Teachers are elated about the fact
that you know, there's a structure behind us students, even
though some students have given some pushback about it. A
good amount of students are connecting more with their peers.
They're finding having more authentic conversations, particularly during their lunch
(04:18):
and their free periods or their and that we're also
seeing a lot of positive free feedback from families as well.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So in practice, how does the cell phone ban work?
Speaker 3 (04:29):
So we have two policies.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
One of our policies is that our students are given
what's known as a Yonder pouch.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yonder is a company that makes them.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
You may have seen those in sporting events and concert
Their students have that Yonder pouch on their person and.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
They put it in on a way to school.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
We have a device that kind of opens it up
and closes it, and they can open and close it
when they leave and enter the building. We have another
policy in some of our schools where the phones are collected,
they're stored in safe space, and then they're giving back.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
And then for.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Either structure, we've developed systems in the event of emergency,
which is kind of the biggest area that most where
students could ultimately have access to their phones within minutes,
and those structures are built out within our schools.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Since you've been doing this, you know, implementing this practice
over the past decade, and you know other schools are
sort of getting it together and crafting their policies. What
advice would you give them?
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Well, I think I think the devil is in the details,
so to speak, and I really think that schools should
think very thoughtfully about all of the details that need
to be executed in terms of communicating the policy to
the school stakeholders, in terms of personnel that could support
with any of the collection or any of the tools
(05:52):
that you're going to be utilizing. And then I think
you need to also think about, you know, what are
the things that for any policy major of the folks
within the school system or school structure. So you also
kind of have to think about, like what is that
ten percent that might struggle with the buying to this policy,
Like what are you doing to support those? So I
(06:13):
think thoughtfully around those areas.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Our guest is doctor Curtis Palmore, CEO of United Charter
High Schools, which implemented a network Bell to Bell's cell
phone ban as of twenty twenty four. We're speaking to
him as New York City public schools prepare for the
district wide cell phone ban effective this semester. You can
find out more about ucchs at United Charter dot org.
You're listening to get connected on one six point seven
(06:38):
light FM. I'mna del Rio. I also want to ask
you about a couple other topics. Sure, So, you recently
wrote an Amsterdam News op at about DEI, specifically inclusion
in New York City schools. There has been a backlash
to DEI recently. Why is it such a priority for UCHS?
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Well, I think it's it's a priority because it's ingrained
and just our kind of.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Ethos as an organization.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
You know, part of our work is that we serve
in the communities that we serve. We serve a diverse
body of students and families, and it's important that because
we're serving this diverse body of students and families, that
we create structures and systems so that every learner and
every family that is part of organization feels welcomed and
(07:27):
feels like they are included in the work and sometimes
the decisions and the work that we're doing collect living
in our organization. And that includes the largely black and
brown youth that we serve, That includes the ENGOs angus learners,
the students that with disabilities that we could that includes
the students that may be part of the lgbt, t I,
(07:50):
t q I A plus community like we want to
ensure that every learner feels like they're a part of
our organization.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
As you mentioned in your own while many schools and
organizations launched DEI initiatives in the last few years, yes,
a fair amount of those sadly would show over substance.
So speaking about your schools, what does real inclusion look
like in practice? Can you give an example?
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (08:15):
So you know, I think, which is because this is
actually happening in the next couple of days, but we
have our systems, our structures in the schools where our
students are welcomed. New students that come to our schools
are welcomed to an experience prior to the start of
the school year. We give them opportunities to connect with staff,
(08:38):
to get to know the curriculum. They have like team
building experiences, and we design this experiences so that our
students feel welcomed. We designed these experiences so that students,
particularly students that might need like a little bit extra
supports around some of the academic and social areas of school,
(09:00):
that they feel they have an opportunity to connect there.
We also use this as an opportunity to kind of
think about pathways of support for the students throughout the
four years that they're in our schools.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Finally, I'd like to ask you briefly about another hot topic,
which is ai AI there's goods, there's bad. How are
you approaching it at your schools?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
So you know, we're fortunate on a couple of so
first off, as an organization, we developed a system called
a structure called the network Inquiry Teams. Our network increy
teams are teams of adults that work in our schools
from varied levels from out the seven schools, and also
a central office team that essentially come together to think
(09:47):
about forward thinking ways to develop forward thinking strategies around
a variety of topics. And we decided this last year
to develop a network inquiry team that it's focused on
the use of AI in our schools. We had a
team of really dedicated, amazing adults that ultimately, throughout their
(10:09):
work through an entire year of meeting, developed a playbook
that essentially provides strategies and structures for our entire network
in terms of how to implement in a safe, in
a productive way, the use of AI. We've seen across
the country. We're seeing through headlines and major news outlets
(10:33):
that AI is being abused in so many ways, and
we wanted to get ahead of that. We wanted to
think about ways that our school communities, particularly our students,
can utilize AI in a very productive and safe way.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You're primarily speaking about students, but I also want to
ask you briefly, just in our last couple of minutes
about teachers. Right I was reading this week about how
teachers are saving time with lesson planning and grading. What
opportunities does AI actually present for your staff.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
Yeah, so you know, we are very very excited. One
of our schools, Humanities too in the Bronx, they have
actually received a grant from Leading Educators and the Learning Accelerator,
and that grant is specifically focused on professional development opportunities
for the use of AI, and right now we're working
(11:21):
on a very specific project on reducing teacher workload, helping
to personalize the learning experiences, and then utilizing AI to
support just the overall kind of equity work that's connected
to schools. And we're really excited that this grant is
helping us to be a forefront, forefront network.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Anything you can do to lighten the load on teachers
and give them more breathing spaces.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
As welcome for sure. For sure.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Our guest has been doctor Curtis Pellmore, the CEO of
United Charter High Schools. Their website is United Charter dot org.
Have a great school year and thank you for being
to get connected.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Thank you so much, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
This has been and get connected with Nina del Rio
on one oh six point seven Light FM. The views
and opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the
views of the station. If you missed any part of
our show or want to share it, visit our website
for downloads and podcasts at one oh six to seven
lightfm dot com. Thanks for listening.
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