Coppell Chronicle Vol. 5, No. 25
School Districts Prepare for Phone-Free Era • State Forced Coppell to Repeal Curfew • Charter School Expands to Sixth Grade • Big Project Envisioned on Sandy Lake Road
School Districts Prepare for Phone-Free Era
Coppell ISD is enforcing the state’s new phones ban more stringently than the city’s other school districts, but it’s not going as far as some districts in the region.
Middle school and high school students in Coppell ISD will be issued signal-blocking pouches, and they will be expected to stow their cell phones and smart watches in those pouches all day, including passing periods and lunches. The district did not buy pouches for elementary students; those younger kids will be expected to keep their devices in their backpacks.
Pouches were not mentioned when the trustees for Coppell’s other two school districts — Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD and Lewisville ISD — approved their equivalent policies. Tweens and teens in those districts will be told to keep their phones and smart watches in their backpacks.
All of these policies stem from House Bill 1481, which the Texas Legislature approved this year. One might assume this law was crafted by an older person who can remember being a high school student before phones began dominating modern life, but it was introduced by Rep. Caroline Fairly of Amarillo, who was only 26 when she took her oath of office last January. That means she was 8 years old when the iPhone debuted.
(Every legislator who represents a portion of Coppell or Coppell ISD voted to approve Fairly’s bill: Ben Bumgarner, Cassandra Garcia Hernandez, and Terry Meza in the House, and Nathan Johnson and Tan Parker in the Senate.)
From the perspective of Coppell ISD’s teenagers, things could be worse. According to reports published last week by The Dallas Morning News and D Magazine, Dallas ISD students will be issued pouches that will be magnetically locked, and Richardson ISD has been utilizing locked pouches for two years.
Those districts use special devices to unlock their pouches at the end of each day, but Coppell ISD administrators opted to go another way.
“Can you imagine Coppell High School [with] 3,000 people trying to unlock the bags on their way out? I think that could be kind of crazy,” Dwight Goodwin, the district’s Executive Director of Technology, said during a Board of Trustees meeting on July 28.
Instead, Coppell ISD purchased pouches that open and close with Velcro-style fasteners, which teachers should be able to hear if kids try to access them. “It’s going to be really hard to be sneaky," Goodwin said.
Pouches aren’t the only way our local districts’ phone policies differ. When Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD trustees approved their new rules on Aug. 7, they discussed how students will need to start using wired headphones because wireless earbuds will be prohibited. But a set of frequently asked questions on Lewisville ISD’s website says students will be allowed to use Bluetooth earbuds to listen to music on their district-issued iPads.
Coppell ISD has published its own set of frequently asked questions, and the first question is about violations and consequences. During the July 28 board meeting, Interim Superintendent Doug Williams likened the new disciplinary measures to the ones he followed as a principal in the “dress code era.”
“The first time that they violated the dress code, we would remind them. The second time, it might be a little punitive,” Williams said. “When it got to the third or fourth violation, it was a little bit of insubordination, and we treated it accordingly.”
As Williams wrapped up those comments, his phone dinged to inform him of an incoming text message. “You’re gonna need one of those pouches,” Board President David Caviness told him.
State Forced Coppell to Repeal Curfew
Although the previous article may have disgusted teenagers, this article may delight them. The City of Coppell is about to repeal its curfew for minors because the state made such rules illegal.
Since 2000, Coppell has had an ordinance on the books that established a curfew for unaccompanied children ages 10 to 16. It began at 11 o’clock each night except for Fridays and Saturdays, when it began at midnight. It ended at 6 o’clock each morning.