TASB Cell Phone Policy Development: Your Voice Matters
Join the Conversation
TASB is creating a model cell phone use policy that member districts can customize for their schools. We need your expertise and perspective to ensure this policy reflects diverse community needs and practical governance challenges.
Why Your Input is Valuable
School policies work best when developed through "collaborative effort involving faculty and staff, administrators, students, parents and Board members." Your frontline experience as a Trustee provides essential insights into:
- Implementation realities across different district types
- Community expectations and concerns
- Balance between educational technology opportunities and appropriate limitations
- Enforcement considerations and practicality
How to Participate
Interactive Online Platform
Share your thoughts through our dedicated engagement site where you can:
- Respond to discussion prompts
- Complete quick polls
- Submit your own ideas
- Review and comment on other trustees' suggestions
This platform allows you to "engage on topics important to you, at a time that is convenient to you" without having to "attend community meetings at a set place and time."
Focus Groups (Virtual or In-Person)
Join small group discussions with fellow trustees to dive deeper into specific aspects of cell phone policy:
- Elementary vs. secondary approaches
- Classroom management strategies
- Parent communication best practices
- Enforcement considerations
- Technology as a learning tool
Register and follow this page to receive updates as focus groups are scheduled.
Policy Development Committee (3-4 Meetings)
Apply below to join a select group of trustees who will:
- Review survey and focus group data
- Work directly with TASB Policy Service staff
- Shape key recommendations
- Review draft policy language
- Provide implementation guidance
Project Timeline
- April 2025: Initial survey and online discussions
- May 2025: Focus groups and data analysis
- June 2025: Committee work and draft policy development
- July 2025: Final review and revisions
- August 2025: Release to membership
This collaborative approach ensures the final model policy will be practical, adaptable, and reflect the diverse needs of Texas school districts while providing meaningful guidance on this important issue facing schools today.
Cell Phone Policy Perspectives
Share Your Experience and Vision
As a trustee with firsthand experience in school governance, your perspective on cell phone policies is invaluable. In this guest book, we invite you to share:
- One significant challenge your district has faced regarding student cell phone use
- One approach or solution that has shown promise in addressing this challenge
- Your vision for what an ideal cell phone policy would accomplish
Your contribution will be visible to other trustees participating in this engagement process, creating a collective resource of experiences and insights from across Texas. While direct responses to others' comments aren't permitted in this "guestbook," the diverse perspectives shared here will inform our model policy development.
Please be specific and brief to ensure your key points are clear to both the TASB policy development team and fellow trustees reviewing these entries.
One significant challenge your district has faced regarding student cell phone use: restrictions are difficult to enforce, especially because smart watches are used to skirt the rules.
One approach or solution that has shown promise in addressing this challenge: a few of our schools have done cell phone storage pilots that show students prefer not having phones in the learning environment, but it only works if all students comply.
Your vision for what an ideal cell phone policy would accomplish: An ideal cell phone policy would be one that gets at least 85% of students and parents to voluntarily comply most of the time and involve enforcement at the margins rather than as a regular task for teachers that takes away from the learning environment.
I do believe that cell phone use in the classroom has been a distraction for many of our teachers and that more often than not it is parents communicating with their children throughout the school day as a whole. There are a few cases of students using the devices to access inappropriate content or to carry out cyberbullying or academic cheating, but ultimately most students are not abusing access to cell phones. I would recommend a policy that restricts the use of cell phones in the classroom so long as there are alternative forms of technology that can aid instruction. That being said, it would be a compromise or balance to allow students access to and the use of their cell phones during lunch or recess to accommodate any of those social or familial aspects of device use.