Going into effect at the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year, the Texas Legislature passed HB 1481, which banned the use of cellphones or any form of electronic communication devices in all public schools in the state. Along with cellphones, this bill banned AirPods and other Bluetooth headphones.
Because of this, teachers and staff at Bowie High School did allow for students to bring and use alternate music devices such as MP3 players, Discmans, Walkmans, cassette players, among other things. Students could connect devices to wired headphones and this way they could listen to their music without breaking any rules that had been set in place by HB 1481.
“The message conveyed to administration at the beginning of the year was that wired headphones that were connected to something that’s not digital would be allowed,” assistant principal Crystal Keck said.
However, a few weeks into the school year, the district reached out to Bowie administrators and a meeting was held regarding the use of MP3 players and such on campus. The AISD Student Code of Conduct and the AISD Student Success Guide states that devices of the kind weren’t allowed at schools, and having them could result in disciplinary action.
“The Student Success Guide historically had no MP3 players, no Walkmans, nothing where you could plug in a headphone and then listen to it,” algebra teacher Leanne Walker said. “Soon after school started there was a principals meeting, saying those devices are not allowed either because they’ve never allowed it, it had been such a long time since anyone used any of those devices that everybody forgot that they actually existed.”
With the enforcement of this policy, students have been given significantly decreased access to music; which is why certain teachers allow their students to connect wired headphones to their Chromebooks to listen to music.
“I feel for my students because the class gets loud or someone’s talking and you’re trying to focus, and if you’re listening to your own music it’s easier for you to dial in,” Walker said. “I’ve used GoGuardian to allow music sites that have not already been blocked.”
A few of the unblocked sites include Apple Music, SoundCloud, and Titan Music, which have been helpful to students that find it hard to concentrate without any form of music.
“I listen to music on the bus, at home, in the car; but in school if I didn’t have music I’d fail, 100 percent,” junior Jonaven Rondeau said. “My friend got me these headphones so I can connect them to my computer; and SoundCloud has helped me so much.”
Changes to music accessibility by students that were brought up by the house bill and reemergence of old district policies have been something the district and Bowie’s staff and students have had to get used to, favorable or not.
“Everything’s been a big adjustment with this law,” Keck said. “We’ve all gone through this together, for better or worse.”
