TRI-COUNTY — Big Bend area school districts are adopting new policies ahead of the coming school year in order to comply with HB 1481, a bill passed last legislative session prohibiting student use of cellphones and other electronic devices during school hours.
Local district leaders told The Big Bend Sentinel they are making their best efforts to comply with the law, with some stating that they are awaiting further guidance from the Texas Education Agency before solidifying procedures. Administrators are notifying students and parents about the tighter cellphone restrictions via social media and in community meetings ahead of the fall semester.
HB 1481 requires public school boards and open-enrollment charter school leaders to pass a written policy “prohibiting a student from using a personal communication device while on school property during the school day” and establishing disciplinary procedures for those in violation. Tablets, smart watches, pagers and headphones are also prohibited under the ban, with some exceptions, like for those using the technology to monitor medical conditions. Devices provided to students by the school are not subject to the new restrictions.
The bill’s proponents — which include Texas reps. Caroline Fairly (R-Amarillo) and James Talorico (D-Austin), who helped author the legislation — have argued restricting cellphone use will limit harmful classroom distractions. “The increasing presence of personal devices in Texas schools poses concerns about their impact on student learning, safety, mental health, and overall school environment,” the bill analysis states.
“Managing student devices has become increasingly more difficult for schools considering how ubiquitous these devices have become,” said Terlingua CSD Superintendent Reagan Reed. “Legislative statewide consistency provides clarity for teachers, parents, and students.”
Schools can comply with the new state law by either prohibiting devices on school property entirely or by “designating a method for the storage” of devices during the school day. While Terlingua CSD is prohibiting students from “possessing or using,” cellphones during the school day, other area districts that spoke to The Sentinel, including Marfa, Marathon and Alpine ISDs, indicated that they will be pursuing the storage method, essentially allowing phones on campus but requiring that they be silenced and stored out of sight in lockers or backpacks.
“They have to be in their backpacks at all times. Nothing where it’s sticking out of the pocket, where you can see that they have a phone on them,” Marfa ISD Interim Superintendent Arturo Alferez explained to board members in a meeting this week. “It’s not just phones, it’s all electronic devices — smart watches, headphones, everything, everything has to be in the backpack.”
Marfa ISD trustees sought clarification on their district’s policy this week, ultimately deciding to prohibit the use of cellphones during “instructional” time, including classes and recess, but to allow them during breakfast and lunch. Still, there are grey areas, Alferez said, like field trips, which are an extension of the classroom and therefore technically “instructional” time.
In a follow-up call with The Sentinel, Student Success Coordinator Linda Ojeda agreed the actual implementation of a cellphone ban may be more challenging due to how common, and sometimes necessary, they are. She cited an example of high school students being able to text their parents about their annual income when they are filling out a federal student aid application.
“It is an inconvenience to have all of them using one school phone to call their parents for all their information,” Ojeda said, adding, “We’ll abide by it as much as we possibly can.”
Ojeda said that while she understands phones can cause issues, for the most part administrators have “respectfully come to a common ground” with students about limiting their use, and she fears the state’s move may alienate the relationship between parents and the school. “When it comes out like that from the state and it’s on us to put it on the kids, it makes parents have a little bit of a disdain toward us,” Ojeda said. “To me, I think that further taints the perception that people have of public schools, like, how dare you treat this like a prison? And that’s not the case at all.”
“This is being passed down by the state, similar to, ‘Hey, every student has to take the STAAR test,’ so we just have to abide by it,” she added.
At the Marfa ISD School Board meeting this week Board President Teresa Nuñez said the change is “going to be a big eye opener.” Elementary Principal Rosie Martinez said, “It is and it isn’t,” because the district was essentially enforcing similar cellphone rules already, confiscating and holding devices until the end of the day if needed and more.
“That’s kind of how we’ve been running it in the past,” Martinez said. “So as far as what’s different between then and now, there’s not a whole lot. It’s just state-mandated now.”
But Alferez agreed getting everyone used to the new rules will likely take some time. “Until we’ve trained our students and we’ve trained our parents, this is something that we’re going to be seeing almost every day,” he said.
In a follow up exchange, Alferez said the district is awaiting TEA guidance, set to come out before the start of the school year, and will adjust cellphone policies and procedures as necessary.
“The board will continue to discuss any new changes on cellphones as new recommendations become available from the state,” Alferez said. “We also hope any new update will guide school districts on answering questions of implementation, consequences and exceptions to the new rule.”
Alpine ISD Superintendent Michelle Rinehart said the district’s board adopted guidance last week banning students from using phones during the school day and requiring that electronic devices be stored silently in backpacks — not to be seen or “worn on a student’s person.”
The main change at Alpine ISD will be at Alpine High School, she said, where students were previously allowed to have cellphones on their person. The only change for the elementary and middle schools is the “potential for new consequences if students violate the state law,” Rinehart said.
Parent communications, a high school lunch policy and disciplinary actions are still being worked out by administrators, she said, but announcements are coming soon.
Rinehart said due to Alpine’s remoteness — and how often and how far students travel — the district opted not to ban phones completely, and instead ban the use of them during the instructional day so that parents can still be in communication with their kids as they travel to and from school.
It is common for schools to utilize applications to send out texts to registered students’ and parents’ cellphones, a tool that would likely be utilized in the event of a school emergency. Ojeda said Marfa ISD will continue to share communications through its established channels, but in the rare event of an extreme emergency, of course kids will communicate with their parents. “I would never want to keep a parent from knowing whether or not their child is safe,” she said.