BILL NUMBER: S10685
SPONSOR: GOUNARDES
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the education law, in relation to enacting the "foster-
ing optimal classroom use of screens (FOCUS) act"
 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
To create distraction-free classrooms by phasing in grade-based limits
on pupils' access to Internet-enabled devices and limiting the use of
social media, gaming, direct messaging, and other apps that serve little
to no instructional purpose on such devices.
 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section one of this bill names it the Fostering Optimal Classroom Use of
Screens, or FOCUS, Act.
Section two creates a new article 2-Bin the Education Law to read as
follows:
Section 30 of the article creates definitions.
Section 31 of the article creates age appropriate grade-based regu-
lations for screentime access for grades prekindergarten through 12. For
early childhood and elementary school pupils in grades prekindergarten
through five, students will generally be prohibited from accessing
screens and will be completing assignments via pencil and paper wherever
feasible. For middle school students in grades six through eight,
students will access screens via a computer cart or lab model wherein
devices are rotated amongst students in a classroom. For high school
students, students shall access screens as part of a cart model or on a
one-to-one basis with caregiver opt in.
Section 32 of this article creates a right to analog learning, meaning
that schools and teachers should prioritize in-class and homework
assignments that allow students to complete them in a screen-free manner
wherever feasible. Parents and students would additionally be able to
opt out of screens where a reasonable non-digital alternative to
completing an assignment exists, and schools would be prohibited from
retaliating against pupils who exercise this right. This opt out
provision would not apply to assignments where use of the technology is
inherent to the learning objective of the assignment, such as assign-
ments undertaken pursuant to the NYS Education Department (NYSED)'s
computer science and digital fluency standards.
Section 33 of this article would require that all school-issued devices
be free of social media platforms, gaming platforms, direct messaging
platforms, chatbots, generative Al, conversational Al, and cameras, as
such features have been proven to be highly distracting, detrimental to
youth mental health, and/or conducive to cyberbullying while providing
little to no educational purpose. This bill posits that to the extent
such apps are appropriate for young Internet users at all, which is a
subject of ongoing civic debate, they have no place in a school-issued
device that is meant to be used strictly for instructional purposes in a
school setting.
Section 34 of this article provides that students should not be required
to create or maintain social media in order to participate in official
school functions and assignments.
Section 35 of this article requires educational technology (ed tech)
providers to register with the Office of the Attorney General (OAG)
before being allowed to offer their ed tech products to school
districts. In registering, ed tech providers must self-attest that their
products are: in full compliance with the Childrens Online Privacy
Protection Act (COPPA), the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
(FERPA), and Section 2-D of Education Law; capable of blocking inte-
gration with the apps prohibited in section 33 of this article; do not
allow student users to search for media unrelated to the instructional
content of the app; are free of features that distract student users and
detract from the instructional purpose of the ed tech; and, crucially,
have been proven in at least one independent study to result in improved
academic performance for student users. Ed tech providers unable to meet
these students are ineligible to be integrated into or downloaded onto
school-issued devices.
Ed tech providers are required to re-register their products each time
they make a significant modification to their software and may be
required to pay a registration fee to defray the operating expenses of
the registry. The Attorney General is empowered to pursue enforcement
action against any ed tech provider that fails to register, report a
significant modification, or that otherwise intentionally subverts the
purpose of this section.
Section 36 of this article requires NYSED to update the computer science
and digital fluency learning standards, which were last updated in
December 2020, to account for the myriad advances in technology that
have occurred since that time. 1 Schools shall be required to teach
about the impacts of excessive screen time on young users, the physical
and mental health challenges associated with prolonged social media use,
best practices for how to safely navigate direct messaging services that
connect minors with other unknown users, media literacy skills, and any
other topic deemed relevant by the Education Commissioner. NYSED shall
be required to present the new learning standards to the Board of
Regents for approval within one year of the effective date of the bill.
Section 37 of this article clarifies that nothing in the bill shall be
construed to conflict with Section 2803 of the Education Law, which
prohibits the use of personal Internet-enabled devices, not school-is-
sued devices, by students during the school day. This article shall
further not be construed to prohibit the use of technology that is
included in a pupil's individual education program (IEP), that is used
for translation services, or where the use of the technology is inherent
to the learning objective of an assignment, such as, for example, where
a school is teaching a student to type pursuant to NYSED's computer
science and digital fluency learning standards.
Section 38 of this article requires NYSED to promulgate regulations to
implement the bill.
Section 39 of this article provides enforcement against noncompliant ed
tech providers by the Attorney General.
Sections three through five of the bill makes some necessary updates to
Section 2-D of Education Law, which is New York's student data privacy
statute that governs how schools and third party contractors can collect
and share student data. While Section 2-D already bars the sale of
student data for commercial purposes by contractors such as ed tech
providers, section three of this bill adds a new paragraph g to subdivi-
sion 5 of Section 2-D to clarify that ed tech providers and device
providers can only collect, retain, and share student data to the extent
needed to operate the product or to meet certain legal obligations
enumerated in such paragraph d. The language for this stringent data
minimization requirement is modeled after similar language in the New
York Child Data Protection Act in Article 39-FF of the General Business
Law, which is the law that limits the collection of minors' data for
online operators on personal (non-school-issued) devices.
Section five further provides that school districts shall be empowered
to cancel contracts with ed tech providers with 90 days notice to the
provider or immediately if the district finds that a provider has
violated one of the provisions of this bill.
Section six is a severability clause.
Section seven sets the effective date.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
This bill provides a comprehensive framework for distraction-free
schools by promoting analog learning and testing, limiting screentime,
regulating education technology (ed tech), mandating data privacy, and
ensuring that school-issued devices such as desktops, laptops, and
tablets are free from distracting and inappropriate apps that have
little to no educational value. Known as the Fostering Optimal Classroom
Use of Screens (FOCUS) Act, this bill aligns with the precedent set by
New York's 2025 bell-to-bell ban for students' personal devices, which
put an end to the havoc that smartphones were wreaking in classrooms
through their ability to addict, distract, and impair the mental health
of student users. The FOCUS Act builds upon this framework by recogniz-
ing that it makes little sense for the State of New York to go through
the trouble of limiting personal devices if we are then going to bring
them right back in the form of school-issued devices.
The time is ripe to regulate screens and ed tech in schools. Studies
have linked excessive dependence on ed tech to declining academic
performance, and chronic iPad use by children and adolescents rewires
neural pathways so that the brain will constantly chase dopamine hits,
negatively impacting a child's ability to sustain attention and tolerate
frustration and boredom. Toggling between apps and browser tabs, as
children and teens often do on personal devices in schools, adversely
affects working memory, inhibition, and the ability to task manage, and
studies show that certain forms of generative Al such as large language
model chatbots risk hampering critical thinking as well as the develop-
ment of linguistic and social skills in youth. Additionally, many
parents remain concerned about ed tech providers' ability to comply with
current and future privacy laws that restrict the retention and use of
student data.
The FOCUS Act thus strikes the right balance between promoting responsi-
ble use of screens in an educational context and limiting screens where
they do not enhance learning. It establishes a graduated framework for
school-issued device access based on grade level: no access to digital
devices at all for pupils in prekindergarten through grade two, access
only to supervised, shared devices in a computer lab or cart model for
grades three through eight, and one-to-one devices for grades nine
through twelve with a caregiver's informed opt-in, with a further opt-in
required before such a device can be taken home. This ensures that the
youngest pupils are shielded from screens altogether and that families
retain control over when and how their children begin independent device
use.
This bill also strengthens families' ability to understand and limit
their children's use of school technology. Before each school year,
schools must give caregivers a specific listing of the hardware and
software pupils will use, along with a summary of the latest medical
research on the effects of excessive screen time on youth and other
related information. Teachers, in turn, must prioritize non-digital
instruction wherever feasible, and homework for pupils in prekindergar-
ten through grade six should not require the Internet or device access.
For any assignment that does not inherently depend on a device to meet a
learning objective, a pupil or caregiver may choose a non-digital alter-
native, free from any risk of penalty or retaliation.
This legislation further ensures that any device a school does issue is
safe and age-appropriate. School-issued devices may not contain embedded
social media, gaming, or direct messaging platforms, Al companions, or
generative or conversational Al, with an exception for conversational Al
used as an assistive technology for users with disabilities. Cameras are
similarly banned to guard against cyberbullying and the non-consensual
sharing of images. Devices and platforms are limited to collecting,
retaining, or sharing (defined broadly as "processing") the minimum
amount of data needed to actually operate the service or meet certain
legal obligations, strengthening New York's existing data privacy
protections for students in Education Law § 2-D. The FOCUS Act likewise
bars school personnel from using social media platforms for official
communication with students, and it prohibits schools from requiring a
student to create a social media account in order to participate in any
classroom activity, assignment, or other official school business.
This bill additionally creates a registry for ed tech providers wishing
to offer their products to schools to ensure that they meet certain
quality control and privacy standards. Ed tech providers must be able to
demonstrate compliance with all federal and state data privacy laws,
free from features that reduce a user's focus or distract from the
instructional goal of the ed tech, and, critically, be proven in at
least one independent study to actually improve academic performance.
School districts would be able to cancel contracts with ed tech provid-
ers with 90 days written notice, or immediately for cause. The NYS
Attorney General would be further empowered to sue ed tech providers for
any violation of the bill.
Finally, recognizing that the state's K-12 Computer Science and Digital
Fluency Learning Standards have not been substantially revised since
their adoption by the Board of Regents in December 2020, and the myriad
ways that technology has advanced since then, the FOCUS Act directs the
Commissioner of Education to propose updated learning standards, within
one year, addressing the physical and mental health effects of excessive
screen time and social media use, digital citizenship, media literacy,
including literacy around Al-generated synthetic content, and other
relevant subjects. The FOCUS Act will thus provide students with the
modern skills they need to responsibly navigate tech while limiting the
use of tech where it is not necessary to directly meet the learning
objective of an assignment. This rightsizing of tech dependency in
schools is warranted by recent studies showing that many forms of modern
tech such as generative Al have the potential to disrupt student learn-
ing, undermine academic integrity, reduce students' attention spans and
ability to focus, erode critical thinking and reasoning skills, and,
critically, replace peer-to-peer and student-teacher interaction. The
FOCUS Act will promote the intentional and thoughtf ul use of technology
in schools while ensuring that students are taught about its impact and
that analog learning becomes the default wherever feasible.
 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
None
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
TBD
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the first of August after it shall have
become a law.
1 Computer Science and Digital Fluency Learning Standards GRADES K-12
NYS K-12 Computer Science and Digital Fluency Learning Standards. 2020,
https://www.nysed.gov/ sites/default/files/programs/ teaching-initia-
tives/ computer-science-digitalfluency-standards-k-12.pdf.

Statutes affected:
S10685: 2-d education law, 2-d(1) education law, 2-d(3) education law, 2-d(5) education law