House Bill 1481, which bans all personal communication devices, was adopted by FISD schools at the beginning of the school year. Nearly nine weeks in, students and faculty in fine arts classes are feeling the effects and have had to make adjustments to adapt.
“I think the biggest problem our department as a whole has faced is communication,” theatre’s intrapersonal relations and state officer senior Emma D’Andria said. “We have a Remind and we usually send stuff out in the mornings and during advisory time as a reminder, but we’ve had lower attendance at events because people forgot without that midday reminder.”
Theatre students prepare for performances by studying their characters, a process now impacted by the house bill.
“If we’re trying to research about the role a character would play in today’s society, often we can’t access that information as easily,” D’Andria said. “Most performers, especially the leads, make playlists based on their character. For me, before I go on stage, I’ll listen to the songs and walk around to get me into my character’s mindset, but I can’t do that with my Chromebook if I don’t have AirPods.”
Students can no longer use personal laptops and must rely on school-issued computers, many of which block certain websites.
“I have to find monologues and duet scenes for a lot of people, and all of that information is on my personal computer,” D’Andria said. “Instead of using the class time allotted, I usually have to wait until I get home so I can pull my personal computer out to look things up.”
Orchestra students face similar challenges.
“People in the orchestra do record to submit their homework, so that gets in their way because they can’t do it at school; they have to go home and record,” harpist junior Tiffany Lee said. “I don’t see the positive side of it because now we have to do all of these extra steps to replace the phones.”
Harpists rehearse separately from the rest of the orchestra because their instruments are different, and they typically rehearse three to four times with the full orchestra before performances.
“Since I’m a harpist, I don’t get to play with the orchestra as much because I’m in a different classroom,” Lee said. “I would play recordings of the piece on my phone so I could play along, but now I can’t do that anymore.”
In visual arts classes, teachers have adjusted assignments, and students now use Chromebooks and iPads to photograph and document their portfolios.
“My AP classes are affected the most because they have to document so much with their portfolios,” visual arts teacher Suzanne Blair said. “I have had to adapt some assignments in various classes because we used to have assignments where we could use cell phones for photography to try and teach students how to use their cell phones in a positive way.”
Blair said enforcing the law has made building student-teacher relationships more difficult.
“I’m trying to build student-teacher relationships, and it’s hard when I’m having to take personal devices away from students because that’s the law,” Blair said. “I’m trying to build relationships with students and get them to understand that this is because of the law, it’s not because of me personally.”
Some positive effects have also emerged.
“I see students interacting in person a lot more, and it’s nice to see them building people skills,” Blair said. “I’ve also seen less of playing games and being distracted by texting and social media. They’ve still found ways to play games on their Chromebooks or text through email, but it’s not as much as it was with the cell phone.”
In theatre classes, the ban has helped reduce distractions.
“Whenever we’re learning about acting techniques, or we’re doing some kind of exercise or warm up when we start class, everyone’s really focused on each other, and it allows us to kind of come together,” D’Andria said.
Opinions remain mixed about the intent and effectiveness of the house bill in fine arts classes.
“I think the idea of the ban causing less distractions, I don’t think it’s actually doing that,” D’Andria said. “Our phones are not our only distraction, there are so many other distractions that exist.”
