This school year, and possibly moving forward, the state of Texas prohibited personal communication devices (PCDs) on campus for the first time, which has left students wondering why the state wanted to do this now.
“The hardest part was the implementation and trying to get the students to buy in,” Principal Will Falker said. “We were diligent in sending out messaging to all of our parents. We let them know what was coming and what was going to happen and the disciplinary consequences behind it. I think we did a great job of informing our parents and informing our students, letting them know what the expectations are. Ultimately, it’s been a smooth rollout of this PCD thing.”
Given these new announcements, students were vocal about their feelings on this new policy.
“I think there’s mixed feelings, but mainly all I care about is that I can’t listen to music while walking around,” junior Adam Barrientos said. “Lunchtime is kind of dumb, that we don’t get our phones during our ‘so-called’ break times.”
Along with Barrientos is junior Jacob Soto, who also has strong feelings on the PCD policy this year.
“It’s a complicated issue,” Soto said. “I can see why they did it but it’s not my favorite thing in the world. I would use my phone a lot, anytime I had free time in between doing stuff and I would even get distracted at times. This year, I’m definitely less distracted. I’m listening to my teacher more. I’m taking more notes. So that’s probably going to help me out in the long term in my learning.”
Junior Robert Galvan is also having mixed feelings on the PCD policy this year, and believes learning this year has
been harder for him because of it.
“It’s too much because I feel like during passing periods, lunch and our advisory, we should be allowed to have our phones,” Galvan said. “Learning is a little more difficult for me because I like to listen to music when I learn. It’s something that helps me and I know a lot of people would agree with that. Coming into the year I was disappointed and upset that they had to do it. Now it just makes school boring for me.”