In the fall of 2022, students could be seen roaming the halls and classrooms freely with phones in their hands. Now, in the present day, phones must be legally hidden and restricted, and hall passes must include a specific school-issued name to ensure their authenticity.
Over the past four years, LASA has experienced changes in regulations and freedoms. This issue, the Indepth will reflect on each year individually and its specific changes to regulations on hall walking and phones.
2022-2023:
2022 was a year students were able to access their phones easily. They flipped open their phones when the Queen of England was declared dead in third period one day and joined in on a record-breaking engagement for the FIFA World Cup on their laptops, which, according to FIFA, hosted the most-streamed final in history with over one billion streams.
Senior student council president Isabel Liu, reflected on the rules of phones throughout this year and their involvement in the student culture. To her, even the concept of restrictions was unfathomable.
“During freshman year, for what I can remember, phones weren’t really regulated at all,” Liu said. “I think some teachers had their own specific preference of kids putting their phones away and whatnot, but I cannot recall any rules on phones.”
Even when it came to hall walking, Liu couldn’t find any extreme rules. Any rules or regulations were insignificant to her experience.
“I think hall walking has always been lightly regulated through hall passes, one at a time, and not leaving during the first or last ten minutes,” Liu said. “But other than that, it was pretty lenient.”
Senior Sophia Kim actually found that hall walking had a stronger presence in her freshman year. Although she herself didn’t even find herself wandering much, she still appreciated the right.
“Hallwalking was part of the high school experience, but it has been severely restricted by the teacher and admin,” Kim said. “It hasn’t affected me too much, per se. But it does just seem to be limiting my freedom.”
2023-2024:
In the fall of 2023, access to technology allowed students to read some of the most read stories, such as the loss of the Titan submarine, and stay updated on major global events. Additionally, after its initial release in 2022 and growth to over 100 million users in 2023, this year would see the rise of ChatGPT.
Liu found that the increase of artificial intelligence plays a role in increased pressure against technology. To her, cheating itself is a trend she began to notice.
“I think the admin themselves wanted to regulate phones because of the cheating issue,” Liu said. “There is also the idea that phones are just a distraction during a learning environment, so that’s why they’ve been regulated.”
Junior Lauren Sanchez didn’t feel affected by any regulation on phones. Compared to her other years, she found that her freshman year was extremely lenient.
“It was a lot more relaxed,” Sanchez said. “We were on our phones in almost every corner of the room.”
Kim also didn’t feel any restriction on phones. However, to her, hall walking was a different story.
“Sophomore year, that’s when they really started to enforce or restrict hall walking,” Kim said. “There would be a teacher or an admin who would usually stop and catch students in the hallways for hallwalking, and at that point, you did really need to start carrying a hall pass, or I guess make a hall pass.”
Sanchez, on the other hand, without the comparison to past years, didn’t see much restriction. She simply noticed an effort but weak execution.
“Hall walking was strict [at first],” Sanchez said. “But then after the first week, they never, ever cared again.”
2024-2025:
In 2024, students lived through a presidential election. Although phones were restricted within classrooms, laptops contained news stories as students tracked major global conflicts, assassination attempts, and the solar eclipse, according to the New York Times’ tracker on their most-read stories.
The 2024-2025 school year brought on a new phone policy for students. Liu explained the restrictions, but in retrospect finds them more moderate compared to policies today.
“Junior year phone regulation ramped up slightly,” Liu said. “I mean, we just had the phone jail, but you were able to use it during lunch and the passing period.”
For Kim, the restrictions were almost completely insignificant. She found a similar trend as before: that the execution of the hall walking policy wasn’t very effective.
“Phones had to be locked away in the caddies, but I would say it didn’t change too much,” Kim said. “There were just additional rules that not many people followed.”
However, Liu noted that this policy was made by the school independently. She explained how, from her perspective, this policy focused more on issues affecting the school personally rather than the effects of technology in general.
“I also think phones have been viewed as a source of distraction but also cheating,” Liu said. “Our school has had these issues with cheating, and I think that was a major reason besides the actual bill being passed, since that’s out of their control.”
On the other hand, Sanchez found the restrictions to become more intense. Compared to her freshman year, she found her sophomore year to have increased rules.
“They definitely eventually got a little more strict,” Sanchez said. “No phones in class and hall walking suddenly changed when they got security guards.”
Liu stood on similar ground with Sanchez when it came to hall walking. She found that, overall, the environment of wandering around the halls was now filled with strict administrators.
Kim did note one security change of students being required to carry around IDs for identification throughout the school when leaving during class. However, similar to other policies this year, she found it to have little effect on students.
“I think junior year was when they began to enforce IDs and [students] were forced to carry their ID,” Kim said. “I did not.”
2025-2026:
Now in 2025, students are living in the effects of the Texas House Bill 1481. The bill enforces a total ban on any personal communication devices, and to ensure that students comply, if any devices are seen, the official Austin Independent School District (AISD) decision is to take the device till the end of the school day on the first strike.
HB-1481 was passed to ensure an attentive classroom environment focused on teaching without the distraction of technology. However, Liu has found that the choice has instead made a major impact within school environments.
“It’s senior year,” Liu said. “And the new legal regulations of phones have been a big change.”
For Kim, with the legal repercussions of using a phone during school hours and AISD policy allowing for the destruction of a phone held by a student for over 60 days, she has found that this policy is intense for students. On the other hand, the intense spotlight on phones has created a more forgiving perspective on hall walking regulations.
“Well, phones are supposed to be turned off, powered off, and in your backpack,” Kim said. “Hall walking– yeah, not allowed. At this point, it hasn’t been allowed for a few years, but it ultimately depends on your teacher.”
Overall, Kim does agree with the bill’s goal. Initially, in the bill’s description, she saw very little conflict with its intended purpose.
“I think it’s an attempt to promote more education and listening,” Kim said. “You have to focus in class more, can’t skip, and only sit there and listen to lectures and teachers. You can’t use your phone, so you’re less distracted.”
Liu also finds herself agreeing with the bill’s intended achievement. She explained that she finds herself distracted by technology and agrees that the removal of technology would create a positive impact overall.
“I do agree that many of my friends, I, and many people I know are frequently distracted by our phones and technology, and some personal devices have more distracting functions than Chromebooks, of course,” Liu said. “So I do see the purpose and benefit of putting away these distractions.”
Now with the bill implemented, Liu also finds that it is achieving its goal. Compared to past years, though she sees a lot of restriction but also a lot more attentiveness in class.
“I think I’ve seen a lot more engagement in class,” Liu said. “Maybe I’m being biased because I’ve been a lot more engaged in class, but I feel like every class I’ve been in has been more focused on learning.”
As student council president, Liu has found that the new bill is hurtful to clubs. Between scheduling meetings and gaining new members, limited communication has challenged growth.
“I think with the phone regulation, it’s so much harder to communicate with people during the school day because sometimes you need to find people for a certain event and different things to talk to them about, like academics and extracurricular activities,” Liu said. “But, it’s difficult to do that now because nobody can know when they get an email or something.”
As a member of LASA Lacrosse, a club sport, Sanchez agreed with Liu that a lack of communication can make it difficult to grow sports teams, especially for less-funded teams.
“It’s become more difficult to sign up for clubs, and we used to be able to send texts before meetings, but we cannot do that anymore,” Sanchez said. “Participation has been hard”
Additionally, as an officer for HOSA, Kim related to the difficulty of running a club without communication. For her, the recruitment process has changed completely.
“Since we can’t pull out phones to scan QR codes, we have to fill out Google forms, and since we can’t text each other, we have to send emails through our school accounts that are censored and block outside emails,” Kim said. “So overall, it’s been very difficult to organize meetings.”
As for teachers, Liu has found that many have been uniquely restricted. Now that all students are forced to utilize AISD Chromebooks, they are also forced to face the myriad of blocked websites, according to Liu.
“I’ve heard a lot of teachers, specifically my math teachers, have specific websites they really love to use for their teaching, and they can’t use them anymore because they’re suddenly blocked on Chromebooks,” Liu said. “I think that is a big issue for teachers.”
However, besides clubs, Kim has also found personal issues with the restrictions on phones. A major criticism to HB-1481 was not accounting for the lack of communication readily available for an emergency, and Kim has faced their own trouble.
“I had to leave school early, but I wasn’t able to communicate to my parents that I’d be a bit late,” Kim said. “So, they were just waiting in the parking lot for 30 minutes, and when I got to the car, of course, they were mad at me.”
Kim believes that the restrictions are intense. She finds the complete block of communication to be limiting simple communication requirements for normal day-to-day lives.
For Liu, the ban on communication isn’t necessarily negatively impacting her daily life, but the effect on the quality of work is. For her, the permitted technology’s poor quality limits students.
“As a student, taking away our phones and all our communication devices like iPads, laptops, and even headphones was pushing it a bit,” Liu said. “Personally, I do kind of love this idea of tuning out devices from online and being in the moment at school for learning, but, I feel like this personal device ban is taking a step down in technology. Maybe if we had more funding, they could provide better devices.”
Looking forward, if the bill continues for decades, Kim doesn’t see any of HB-1481’s intended changes occurring. To her, the distaste for the ban against phones could only exacerbate what it was trying to regulate.
“People underestimate the phone addiction of this generation,” Kim said. “I assume students will forever find another way to bring phones or technology in.”
