Texas Bans Cellphones for Students

Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law the bill which the Texas Legislature passed banning students from having cellphones during school hours. In Texas for a bill to become the law it has to pass both Houses of the Legislature in identical form, then be signed into law by the Governor.

If there is substantial opposition to any bill, it likely does NOT get passed in the Legislature. The Texas Legislature has a Senate with 31 members. Each member represents about one million Texans. The Texas House of Representatives has 150 members. Each member represents about 200,000 Texans.

The Texas Legislature meets every two years in session for 140 days, which is just under 5 months. During that time many, many bills are filed and most of them will not be passed. To get a bill passed requires at a minimum just over half of the 31 senators and just over half of the 150 representatives. It is often said “there’s many ways to kill a bill, but only one way to pass a bill,” meaning both houses have to pass it in the same form, and it must not be vetoed by the governor. That is how the bill banning students from using cellphones in school got passed.

The bill passed the Senate 31-0, while passing the House 128 to 17. Those numbers are seldom seen. This means that Republicans and Democrats all over the State of Texas AGREED that this bill was essential, and that is why they passed it. They would not have done so without overwhelming support from their constituents.

The model for the notion of banning cellphones came from the Richardson Independent School District, which implemented such a restrictive system. Eighty-five (85) percent of the teachers in the district said they got more instructional time back from having a cellphone free environment for students.

The bill passed with over 2/3 majorities in the House and the Senate, so once signed it became the law of Texas immediately. Texas School Districts have 90 days to adopt the cellphone policy. That means they have until September 18, 2025 to pass such plans and implement them.

I worked in the Texas Senate as the Legislative Assistant to a very powerful Senator from a major city in Texas. Any bill that gets passed like this one did has overwhelming support from constituents and power groups all over the State. I find in inconceivable that this got passed without significant support of School Districts and their boards.

Hopefully, this gets implemented quickly and end result is having public schools which reduce the distraction of cellphones by students, and the bullying in which the cellphones have played a role.