ABILENE, Texas ( KTAB/KRBC ) – In a classroom at Wylie ISD, you can find students sitting at their desks learning from their teacher, reading, or playing board games. One thing you won’t find is a cell phone.
This school year, Wylie ISD implemented the ‘No Cell From Bell to Bell Policy,’ requiring students to keep their phones in their backpacks from the first bell to the last. Students who take their phones out are disciplined through punishments like lunch detention and in-school suspension.
Wylie ISD implements ‘No Cell from Bell to Bell’ policy: phones prohibited in the classroom.
Stephanie Hood has been a teacher at Wylie ISD for eight years, teaching honors biology and health science theories. She has noticed more student engagement in the last few weeks than she has through the years.
“The past years before the cell phone policy, I was confiscating phones because they were on their desks and, out of habit, would just pick it up and get on it, and I would have to, in the middle of a lecture, to get their phone and take it to the office. So, for the past seven weeks, I have had 150 students and 8 class periods a day. I have not taken up a single phone, and it has been amazing,” explained Hood.