Conroe Independent School District issued 12,880 cellphone-related discipline referrals during the 2025-26 school year, the first full year under Texas' statewide phone ban.
Mark Murrell, CISD assistant superintendent for high schools, presented the data to the school board June 16, Community Impact reported. Cellphone violations accounted for 46.6% of all high school referrals districtwide.
The numbers put a local face on House Bill 1481 (HB 1481), the state law signed June 20, 2025, that bars students from using personal communication devices on public school campuses during the school day. The Texas Education Agency defines covered devices as cellphones, tablets, smartwatches and other devices capable of digital communication. School-issued devices are exempt. The Woodlands High School's policy also covers headphones and personal laptops, according to The Caledonian, the school's student newspaper.
At TWHS, all personal devices must stay in backpacks from bell to bell. Violations can lead to confiscation, referrals and eventually detention or in-school suspension, the Caledonian reported in September 2025. Students with individualized education programs (IEPs), Section 504 plans or documented medical needs are exempt.
Most students caught with a phone did not become repeat offenders, Murrell told the board. At the high school level, 77.2% of students who received referrals had no more than two during the year. At the junior high level, that figure was 89.9%.
The district tracked referrals in four nine-week periods. High school referrals peaked at 3,316 in the third period before dropping to 2,570 in the fourth. Murrell said the district could not draw firm conclusions from the decline but hoped it would become a trend as the policy becomes routine.
Junior high campuses saw the opposite pattern, with referrals climbing from 97 in the first period to 302 by year's end. Murrell attributed the lower overall junior high numbers to fewer students owning cellphones.
"We're going to tighten it up and make sure that everyone knows through our actions that we are in fact very serious about our policy," Murrell said, according to Community Impact.
Educators at The Woodlands High School have reported benefits. Kendra Meyers, a social media teacher at the school, said in the Caledonian's September 2025 coverage that students had become "more present in the classroom." But Meyers also flagged a tension: her Social Media Marketing course covers mobile marketing standards that are difficult to teach without phone access.
Student Grace Boren told the Caledonian that communication was "the one main issue," saying the ban made it harder to coordinate schedules and reach parents. Parents must now contact students through office phones or district messaging systems, according to the Caledonian.
The conversation continues into the 2026-27 school year. On Friday, Oct. 23, TWHS seniors Ian Burch and Madalynn Adams released a podcast episode on The Caledonian examining the ban's ongoing effects. The episode is framed as a student-to-student conversation; no transcript was available at publication.
The TEA allocated $20 million in state grant funding to help districts purchase secure storage solutions and build infrastructure to enforce the ban. Whether Conroe ISD has applied for those funds was not addressed in the board presentation.
