Using a cell phone during lunch break will be a privilege to all Fort Stockton ISD middle school and high school students to begin the 2022-2023 school year – a privilege that middle school students previously didn’t have.

But that may not be the case for students after the first progress report comes out.

Students that are failing any class and/or have an attendance rate below 95% when the first progress report comes out will lose their phone privileges until they meet the No Pass, No Phone policy criteria during the next progress report.

“We want to communicate to our students that while we’re expanding their privileges, it comes at a cost that they continually have to earn,” Fort Stockton ISD Superintendent Dr. Gabriel Zamora said.

The No Pass No Phone policy – modeled after the 1984 No Pass No Play policy – was passed by the Fort Stockton ISD School Board at their regular meeting on July 26 as a part of The New Deal.

"I think everybody knows that you can’t participate in sports if you're failing. So, what we're looking at here is use the No Pass, No Phone policy as an incentive for our kids,” Zamora noted.

The comprehensive policy, which additionally features the High School Open Campus (HSOC), Senior Leadership Mentor Program (SLMP), and Academics First Program (AFP) policies, was designed in response to the COVID-19 learning gaps, and state laws and regulations such as HB-4545.

The purpose of “The New Deal” is to continually improve and incentivize the performance level of all students through strategies that will complement the following programs: English and math courses, quantitative based ability group, and a transition to a nine-week grading period.

“What we’re hoping for is that the policy, and this privilege will encourage our students to do the right thing,” Zamora said.

A possible added benefit from successful adherence to the attendance portion of the policy is that the district will get to keep more money instead of returning it back to the state.

“The discussion was that if we can bring our attendance percentage up above 93%, the district gets to keep an extra million dollars for our students her instead of sending it back to the state. We’re hoping to achieve closer to 95% or higher this year,” Zamora said.

Students will have the ability to earn their phone privileges back if the policy requirements are met by the next progress report or report card period.

Enforcement strategies for the policy will be determined by campus leadership teams, which are led by Assistant Superintendents Gil-Rey Madrid and Roy Alvarado.

Students may also lose their phone privileges if they are caught cyberbullying, caught participating in damage to property (TikTok Challenges), share inappropriate content such as acts of violence, recordings of students/staff, and behavior issues as determined by campus leadership teams.

Starting in 2023, students that fail a spring STARR will lose their phone privileges for the remainder of the school year and the next school year. Students that attend the FSISD summer school and show progress on summer STARR test(s) or benchmark(s) may have their phone privileges restored on a probationary basis.

Array of prerequisites required to participate in HSOC

As with the No Pass, No Phone policy, being allowed to leave campus for lunch will be a privilege, not a right.

To begin the 2022-2023 school year, junior and senior students that have met the STARR requirement, are not behind on credits or participating in credit recovery and have a signed permission slip on file will being the school year with the privilege.

Assistant Superintendent Roy Alvarado clarified that qualifying students need to have a particular schedule in order to have a substantial amount of time to leave campus for lunch.
“It is going to have to be built into the student’s schedule. If there’s a student eligible to have the ability to participate in open campus lunches, they’re going to get a standard 45-minute period plus a little bit of extra time to get them to and from where they need to be,” he said.

To further maintain the open campus privilege, students need to pass all of their classes, maintain a 95% attendance rate, have no more than two tardies during the year returning from lunches, and do not violate the No Pass, No Phone policy.

Students will lose their open campus privilege for the remainder of the year if they are caught transporting any student that does not qualify for open campus and/or fail to return to school following lunch.

Note: If an administrator believes exceptional circumstances exist pertaining to the grades or attendance portion of the policy, they must receive written approval from the superintendent supporting their decision. There is no exception for the STARR exam requirements.