On July 31st, 2025, Governor Greg Abbot signed legislation implementing a phone-free learning environment in Texas public schools. This is one of the many new changes introduced to the Texas school system by the state government this year. After the ban was passed, teachers and students had mixed feelings.
When the school year started, Lebanon Trail was one of many schools adjusting to the new daily lifestyle. Students were forced to learn how to disassociate from their phones.
“It was an abrupt adjustment. For the students, it was kind of like a detox program. They had been conditioned all these years to have it readily at their fingertips,” LT culinary teacher Walston said.
Restrictions on phones in the classroom hurt most project-based courses and extracurricular activities that rely on technology during the school day. This notion is felt from both the student and the teacher perspectives. In a poll conducted with 16 random students, 86.7% confirmed they needed their phones for extracurricular or CTE classes during school. For example, Shanzay Amin is the social media editor for the school yearbook.
“Having no phones means having to plan posts a lot more and using our advisor’s phone to film content. This also leads to issues with moving content from different phones,” Amin said.
Similarly, teachers are being forced to adjust lesson plans and teaching habits due to the device restriction.
“We are a project-based course and also interactive. There are so many ways that we communicate digitally, like with pictures. Kids get really proud of what they cooked at home, but they can show me. They have to preplan at home to email me something,” Walston said.
When the phone ban law was passed, major proponents hoped they would see an increase in student focus during class time and a limited number of distracted students.
“We still have those same challenges with those students who don’t feel comfortable engaging with other students. So that didn’t really change,” Walston said. “There’s obvious differences, and then there’s subtle differences. It didn’t fix everything. It doesn’t make a shy person not shy. But the phone is still one less distraction for teachers to compete with.”
One thing both teachers and students can agree on is that not being allowed phones means a huge limit to their communication and receiving work. For example, in the student survey, more than half responded that, for extracurriculars this year, it is harder to communicate with their coaches and/or directors.
“No phones means our communication is more limited, which hasn’t affected our team too much yet, but it is something that makes us have to prioritize communication more. [For example,] I’ve noticed this year we have to meet in person more,” Amin said.
Communication through technology also hurts how teachers grade their students and receive assignments.
“From the teaching aspect, we have to make videos, and the Chromebooks were horrible. They were horrible to grade; the sound was horrible, it picked up every background noise. And even emailing something was problematic. So I have to change how we’re submitting stuff. What they end up doing is going home and doing homework on those devices that we’ve banned,” Walston said.
Overall, both teachers and students have worked on adjusting to new school life under Texas’ phone ban.
