Ambient chatter fills the halls during transition, replacing the lonesome walk to class with a phone in hand.
House Bill 1481, passed on June 20, 2025, makes the 2025-26 school year the first full school year that students will experience the effects of restricted cell phone use. The law states that during instructional school time, personal communication devices must stay in the students’ backpacks. For Texas High, that means that no phones are permitted for use from 8:20 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
If any faculty member spots a communication device in the possession of a student, including in a student’s bag, pocket or hand, they are required by law to confiscate it. Once taken the first time, parents or guardians can pick the electronic device up with an ID. The second time, a student receives one day of after-school detention. After the third offense, a student gets three days of after-school detention. Once confiscated four or more times, the student will begin to receive In-School Suspension (ISS) and will be required to attend a mandatory parent conference.
Some parents and students express concern about how to contact each other during the school day; however, the school worked intently to plan a safe and reliable way for students to contact their parents at any time. All students can call their parents on their teachers’ in-class phones or use the office phone. If the circumstance arises where a parent needs to contact their child, they can call the front office and ask to speak to them.
Parents may get confused about how this benefits their kids during emergencies, but this decreases the chance for false information to spread about threats, ultimately minimizing chaos and anxiety. In the case of an emergency, the school district will send out important updates as soon as possible to keep everyone safe and correctly informed.
Texas High offers multiple card games to keep students entertained during lunch. Outside of the cafeteria, an array of activities can be found in the grass.
“We have at least 40 young men running around on this grass [outside the cafeteria], throwing a football, and I never saw that last year,” assistant principal Dr. Adam Bell said. “I truly believe that’s a lot healthier for a child’s life than [being] tucked away in a cell phone.”
With the distraction of phones eliminated, students all around campus converse with each other and participate in class much more.
“It’s helping me focus on studying more, I get a lot more work done around school,” sophomore Hollyn Gerrald said. “It’s also helping me build better connections, because I’m speaking with my friends more.”
