Champion High teacher urges Boerne ISD to tighten phone-discipline policy, citing heavy documentation burden

Stephanie Driscis, a parent and teacher at Champion High School, told the board Sept. 15 that the district’s newly adopted phone-discipline policy is well-intentioned but too lenient and burdensome to enforce in practice.

“So far this year I have taught 84 class periods. In that time I have issued 89 warnings,” Driscis said, citing her classroom experience. “If my fellow teachers have done one warning per class period, so far we have issued nearly 10,000 warnings this year” when scaled across the district, she said.

Driscis described the district’s warning process as an eight-step documentation sequence that can take roughly four minutes for a first warning; if repeated across class periods, she said that can add up to hundreds of lost instructional minutes. She told trustees the current practice of resetting warnings every nine weeks undermines deterrence and recommended removing resets, simplifying documentation and instituting a meaningful first-offense consequence.

She also compared neighboring districts’ approaches: she said Alamo Heights does not issue warnings, Bandera confiscates phones on the first offense and Kerrville requires parent contact and parent pickup for confiscations. “I would urge you to consider aligning more closely with our neighboring districts,” she said.

Driscis asked the board to “consider eliminating resets, streamlining our documentation because we need to be teaching and not trying to figure out how often a child used their phone in class,” and said a stronger, simpler policy would reduce interruptions and support teachers.

Board members did not take immediate action on policy changes during the meeting; the comment came during the public comment period.