Students walk out again over cellphone ban
Dozens of students at HISD’s Madison High School walked out of the south Houston high school Monday morning, disrupting classes for the second straight school day over a cellphone ban that is now in effect at the campus.
Students arrived to school Monday morning to find tables lined with plastic bins, where they were expected to leave their phones for the entirety of the school day, and have them returned during their last class period. Madison High School implemented the ban to try to curb fighting on campus, according to a message Principal Edgar Contreras sent to parents Friday.
Announcement of the policy prompted student protests and a temporary lockdown on Friday and then a student walkout around 10:30 a.m. Monday. HISD spokesman Jose Irizarry said the ban was necessary because “cellphone video has been at the center of multiple recent fights on campus.”
“This, obviously, endangers the safety of Madison students and staff and disrupts the learning environment. Neither is acceptable. HISD will continue working to ensure our students and staff have the safe and productive learning environment they deserve at school, every day,” Irizarry said.
Students at Madison, however, said the cellphone policy was only the final straw on a heap of larger, systemic issues at the campus.
Diana Cuadra, a freshman, said the policy was simply adding to other stressors students were already dealing with.
“It’s not even really about the phones, it’s how they’re wasting the environment with the materials they’re trying to provide us,” Cuadra said, citing the repurposing of the school’s library into a “restrictive area” as a particularly frustrating example.
Under Miles’ New Education System, schools like Madison, which are NES-aligned, use libraries as “Team Centers” used partially for independent work, and partially to house students who have been removed from their classrooms for disciplinary purposes.