AUSTIN (KXAN) — When the school year began a few weeks ago, students across Texas were met with a new rule: no cell phones.
Implementation of the rule may vary from school to school, but they’re based on a law that says districts should either ban devices from campus or provide storage for them during the school day.
The rules include cell phones, tablets, smartwatches, gaming devices and even radios and pagers.
School districts around the state spent the last few weeks coming up with a plan on how to enforce the new rules.
At Round Rock ISD, students will be allowed to bring their phones to school.
Before the school year, Superintendent Hafedh Azaiez said, “The law is the law and we have to obey the law. The law pretty much says you can’t have your cellphones during the instructional day. However, we are asking our students to keep their phones in their pockets or out of sight.”
At Manor ISD, Superintendent Robert Sormani said he noticed quite a few changes in the classrooms and on campus.
“We had come to a point where kids would just go into the cafeteria, put on their headphones and stare at their phone for the entire lunch period,” Sormani said.
Now, when he stops by classrooms, Sormani said he sees more kids interacting and engaging with their teachers and peers.
“It seems to be kids more engaged. Seems to be more kids interacting. When you interact more, you have better relationships. When you have better relationships, you usually have better outcomes,” said Sormani.
Westlake High School student Charlie Bonney said it’s a big change.
“It’s a little different now. Big change from last year. We are not allowed to have our phones the whole day,” said Bonney.”We are supposed to keep them in our backpack or leave them at home.”
Bonney said he has some concerns with the new policy.
“I see some pretty big concerns with it, especially if there is an emergencies and being able to contact our parents and I think that is really important in case something happens,” Bonney said.
Westlake High School has a system in place to deal with kids who aren’t following the rules.
On their first offense, the teacher will have a conference with the student and contact the parent or guardian.
On the second offense, there will be an administrator conference with the student and the administrator will contact the parent or guardian.
A third offense gets a student lunch detention. And a fourth offense results in confiscation of the device, which will only be returned to the parent or guardian, plus another lunch detention.
Over at Austin High School, math teacher Mardi Nott said before the change, many students would not interact with each other.
“I think the students are going to become more aware of what is actually happening in front of them,” said Nott.
Manor Independent School District said there will be a learning curve, but educating students, parents and teachers about the changes is key to a smooth transition.
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