AUSTIN, Texas — After dealing with the distractions caused by cellphones, from cyberbullying to interrupting class, Lake Travis ISD decided to do something about it before the start of the 2024-2025 school year.

The devices are now banned during the day for students on elementary and middle school campuses, Pre-K through eighth grade.

Students can still have cellphones on them, but they have to be turned off and put away.

“They’re not allowed to have their cellphone out during the school day. That starts from the time they walk in the building in the morning until the last bell at the end of the day,” Superintendent Paul Norton told us on Inside Texas Politics.

After the school day ends, students will be allowed to use their phones again, even for on-campus, after-school activities.

In the event of an emergency, standard protocol would be followed, and the district would notify parents.

Superintendent Paul Norton tells us another reason behind the ban is how screen time contributes to the mental health crisis modern students face.

Norton says many teens just aren’t engaging socially with their peers and teachers as previous generations did.

“When you walk into a middle school cafeteria, you’ll see a lot of kids on their cellphones, sitting across from each other, much like when you walk into a restaurant, you’ll see a family of four and they’re all on their cellphones. We need to be engaged and we need to be talking. We need to teach our kids that from an early age,” the superintendent argued.

Lake Travis is also dealing with a $4 million budget deficit heading into the school year.

Norton tells us the district hasn’t received an increase in the basic allotment since 2019, but state lawmakers continue to pile on unfunded, or only partially-funded mandates.

The basic allotment is the amount of money the state gives each public school district per student, currently at $6,160.

As an example, Norton pointed specifically to security and safety.

He says Lake Travis started its police department in 2021, but they didn’t have an officer on every campus. Two years later, lawmakers passed a bill mandating just that but didn’t provide enough funding to pay for it.

“So, just that mandate alone, even though we did get minimal funding from the State of Texas for it, it still costs us about $400,000 to $500,000 a year to fully force a police department,” said Norton.

And like many other superintendents across the state, Norton is also starting to imagine a world where school vouchers become a reality in Texas.

If that happens, and public dollars start flowing to other institutions, Norton believes they should face the same public accountability as public schools.

“The competition isn’t a problem. I don’t think anybody worries about the competition. It’s the equity in how the game is played, for lack of a better term,” the superintendent said. “If we’re going to have vouchers, that’s great. But they should have the same accountability, both academically and financially that we do as a school district.”

Lake Travis ISD students return to school on Aug. 14.