Seven Lakes High School students caught using a phone during the school day now face a three-hour detention, phone confiscation and a parent pickup on first offense.

The escalated penalties took effect when Katy ISD opened the 2026–2027 school year on Aug. 12. A second offense triggers in-school suspension. A third means three days of in-school suspension, another confiscation and another parent pickup, The Torch, the school's student newspaper, reported Monday, Aug. 31.

The crackdown follows Texas House Bill 1481, which took effect Sept. 1, 2025. The law requires every school district in the state to adopt and enforce a written policy banning students from using personal communication devices during the school day. The ban covers smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and paging devices but not district-issued electronics.

Last school year was the law's first in effect, and enforcement was lighter. Dr. Jozwiak, identified by The Torch as an AP at Seven Lakes, told the paper that the district gave students more chances through a graduated warning structure. Academic dishonesty pushed the district to get tougher.

"People were using it to cheat [and] take pictures … The phone can be used for good, but if you use it for bad, then it's going to be a bad thing for a long time," Dr. Jozwiak told The Torch.

Mary Pride, an AP Seminar teacher at Seven Lakes, said she was surprised by the jump in consequences but understood the reasoning. Pride said she believes stricter compliance is unavoidable given the state mandate.

Not every student agrees the policy works for all situations. Senior Hasti Jadali participates in the Clinical Rotations program at Katy ISD's Miller Career & Technology Center, where juniors and seniors visit hospital sites and shadow healthcare workers. Jadali told The Torch that students in the program need their phones to submit forms for hospitals during clinicals and called for a more flexible approach.

HB 1481 does include exceptions.

Districts must allow phone use when required by an individualized education program (IEP), a Section 504 plan, a physician's directive or a health and safety requirement. Whether Katy ISD's policy accounts for clinical program students under any of those carve-outs is not clear from available records.

Katy ISD enrolled nearly 90,000 students and nearly 14,000 staff members for the new school year. The phone policy applies districtwide, though the specific consequence ladder reported by The Torch was described in the context of Seven Lakes.