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Teachers and students in the Round Rock school district say they’re seeing benefits from a statewide ban on cell phones in public school classrooms. The ban went into effect at the beginning of this school year, and some students say they feel more engaged inside the classroom and outside of it, too. We’ll have more from Williamson County.
Elon Musk’s Tesla stands to lose millions in tax rebates unless they meet Travis County requirements. Another Musk-owned business is looking for the same deal, except with state funds. Why critics are questioning whether the potential tax incentives are an efficient use of state tax dollars.
Texas prisons without air conditioning routinely reach 90 degrees in the summer heat, with some even topping the triple-digit mark. Such temperatures would routinely violate state standards for other types of lockups, like county jails. We’ve got more data and more about that story on today’s show.
Plus, this week in Texas music history, Willie Nelson finishes up a pair of classic albums. Can you guess which ones? Listen in to find out.
The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:08] Teachers and students in the Round Rock School District say they’re seeing benefits from a statewide ban on cell phones in public school classrooms. That ban went into effect at the beginning of this school year and some students say they feel more engaged inside the classroom and outside of it too. We’ll have more from Williamson County. In Texas, prisons without air conditioning routinely reach 90 degrees in the summer heat with some even topping the triple digit mark. Such temperatures would routinely violate state standards for other types of lockups like county jails. We’ve got more data and more about that story on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:43] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:48] Plus, this week in Texas Music History, Willie Nelson finishes up a pair of classic albums. Come find out which ones. That’s coming up next on Austin Signal. Howdy, and thank you for tuning in today. This is Austin Signal. It’s Thursday, February 5th. I’m your host, Jerry Quijano. Thank you for making us part of your day. We’ve got a lot to get into today, so let’s jump on in. This past legislative session, Texas banned cell phone use in public schools. And since the beginning of this school year, district and teachers have worked out how to take the law into account and over the past several months have started seeing some results. At Round Rock ISD, students and teachers say they have benefited from it mostly. For more, we are talking with Kailey Hunt. She is KUT’s Williamson County reporter and she’s joining us live right now on Austin Signal. Kailey, thanks for coming in today. Thanks, Jerry. So let’s first off, before we talk about the results, let’s talk about how we got there. Remind us about this law and how have educators at Round Rock ISD been implementing it?
Kailey Hunt [00:02:02] Yeah. So this law is commonly referred to as the cell phone ban. It’s name is House Bill 1481, and it went into effect in September. And basically what it does is requires school districts to prohibit students from using cell phones or other personal wireless communication devices.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:23] Play any kind of iPads, things like that, I’m guessing, okay.
Kailey Hunt [00:02:26] And so in Round Rock ISD, what that means is that, you know, phones or any of these other electronic devices must be stored out of sight during school hours.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:36] Okay, that seems pretty basic. So students have sort of been working hand-in-hand, I guess, maybe with some school leaders to discuss how things are going so far. How are these relationships, how are they playing out?
Kailey Hunt [00:02:49] Yeah. So, you know, one of the first things I did when I was reporting this story is, you know, I wanted to see how the students were actually feeling and the teachers and the folks in the classroom. And it turned out that Round Rock was actually holding a meeting itself where students would get on a Zoom. And this happened in December. Students got on a zoom and they met with district leaders and basically got a chance to tell them how they were feeling about this cell phone ban and Yeah, like you said in the intro, you know students maybe
Jerry Quijano [00:03:23] Right over the moon, right? They’re not jumping right a bit to do this
Kailey Hunt [00:03:27] But they overall acknowledged that they felt more socially engaged, both inside and outside the classroom.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:35] Okay, well that certainly sounds like a positive. What about the teachers? How are they feeling?
Kailey Hunt [00:03:40] Yeah, I’m just gonna quote here a Spanish teacher that I talked to from Round Rock High School. She says it’s been, quote, a delight from a teacher perspective, which I’m sure. And, you know, what I thought was interesting with this teacher, Jerry, is, you know she’s been at the school for 11 years, a long-time teacher. And she told me that over the years, you know, she had been kind of flip-flopping on her cell phone policy in the classroom, figuring out the best way. To manage it as more and more students brought them to school, and no matter what, she said she always just had a fight with those cell phones, couldn’t capture students’ attention. And she said with this ban in place, being able to say, hey, this is a state law, it’s actually became pretty easy for her to enforce it.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:25] Yeah, kind of like a tool in her bag right now she could actually use that and it’s really hard It’s understandable right that frustration with cell phones or all these personal devices are a huge part of all of our lives now So what else did you hear from some of the students or the teachers or anybody else who was working themselves through this process?
Kailey Hunt [00:04:44] Yeah, you know, well, and I want to acknowledge, you know, that the students did bring up some concerns. Um, most of those concerns were, uh, revolved around like school safety, right? Um, especially students who were in portables. They noted that they wanted to have the ability to communicate with their parents or loved ones, uh in the event that there’d be a serious emergency situation. Um, but yeah, overall, they- The students said that they were interacting more. They were making friends with people. They said that, they wouldn’t normally be friends with, you know, playing cards at lunch. They’re not staring at their phones as they’re eating their lunch.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:21] Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, that sounds pretty good. I might have to take some of these things into account on my own life. Maybe I’ll have to start talking to my coworkers in the kitchens, and normally I’m just looking straight at my phone. This has been enlightening at the least, and hopefully they’ll continue to figure out this process up in Round Rock and everywhere else across Texas. For the Round Rock angle, we have been speaking with Kailey Hunt. She is KUT’s Williamson County reporter, and we’re going to have a link to her supporting in the podcast show notes and at kut.org slash signal. Kailey, thank you very much. Thanks, Sheri. In East Austin, Elon Musk’s Tesla stands to lose millions in tax rebates if it doesn’t meet Travis County requirements. That deal is under review to make sure Tesla is holding up its end of the agreement. We’re going to have a link to that story in our show notes. But another Musk business is looking for the same deal, except this time with state funds. SpaceX, that’s in the Rio Grande Valley, is one of the poorest regions in Texas. And SpaceX is applying for a state tax refund program. But as the Texas Tribune’s Berenice Garcia reports, critics are questioning whether the potential tax incentives are an efficient use of state tax dollars.
Berenice Garcia [00:06:38] SpaceX has applied for the Texas Enterprise Zone program and could receive up to $7.5 million in state sales tax refunds through it. The program is designed to encourage investment and job creation in low-income areas. Two South Texas SpaceX projects, a rocket production facility and a launch pad expansion project, are all together expected to create more than 1,000 new jobs. But advocates argue the company’s goals of launching more rockets from Starbase means that SpaceX probably would have created these jobs anyway, without the tax incentives. And while some argue this tax refund program encourages investment, critics say the program isn’t working as intended. I’m Bernice Garcia in McAllen.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:23] Most Texas prisons do not have air conditioning, and the temperatures inside these prisons on a scorching hot day can get dangerously high. Investigative reporter Lauren McGaughy, who’s been covering this for years, teamed up with Media Innovation Group fellows at UT Austin to look at new temperature data from these prisons. That group of fellows is headed by Christian McDonald, an associate professor of journalism. McGahey and McDonald spoke with Texas Standard’s David Brown about their work together.
David Brown [00:07:50] Christian, what about data and prison temperatures? What sort of data is out there, and how did your team go about analyzing it? There are a couple of different.
Christian McDonald [00:07:59] Things that we looked at, but this first one, this main one, was a listing of those indoor temperatures that are taken in each un-air conditioned prison. They’re taken at 3 p.m. And they’re taken during the summertime from April 1st to the end of September. And so they provided those to us in a big, like a PDF of a spreadsheet and we had to suck the numbers out of the spreadsheet and in a way that we could count them. So that we could see how many days were at different temperatures in different prisons. And what did you find? There were a lot of days with a lot of hot days within that time period. We looked at how many times it was above 85 degrees inside a prison, and at some point over that four-year period, almost every prison got over 85 at least once. That doesn’t seem very hot, but as you mentioned, it’s that standard for local lockups. And so we wanted to look at that first, but we also looked at how many times it was over 90 degrees and how many time it was 100 degrees.
Lauren McGaughy [00:09:02] And that was consistent. We, you know, there were, it was consistently that hot across these on air conditioned prisons. And just as a reminder, you know, if you sit in your car on a summer day with the windows up, try, try to withstand 90 degrees inside of hot car for five minutes, you know, uh, people living in these conditions being incarcerated in these conditions, they don’t have the free ability to just walk outside and get a breath of fresh air. You know, they’re in a dorm, they are in a cell. They don’t have ready access to water all the time or showers all the times. And so we really wanted to gage how many days in a row that they were sitting in cells or dorms in those temperatures.
David Brown [00:09:42] Lauren, I know that you and I have talked about this in the past since you have, as you were saying earlier, done a lot of reporting on this subject. But for the benefit of many of our listeners who may not understand this, why is it that in a state that gets as hot as Texas does, there are prisons without air conditioning?
Lauren McGaughy [00:10:00] Yeah, you know, this is actually a national problem. So Texas isn’t an outlier. Most prison systems across the country also do not have full air conditioning across all of their prisons. The difference, as you said, is here in Texas and also in the Southwest and in the South, it gets much hotter than it gets in other places. The reason why they don’t have AC is that we’ve chosen not to install them with ACs. Some of these prisons are very old. The oldest prison in Texas dates to before the Civil War. But the prisons that we built in the 90s when we built dozens of prisons, they chose to build them without air conditioning. There were actual legislative discussions and hearings over that. And the decision was, well, let’s save some cash. This isn’t something we’re gonna prioritize. The voters haven’t asked us to do it, and so we’re not gonna do it. And now the state is being sued over whether those conditions are actually violating the constitutional rights of incarcerated people because the allegation is that it’s cruel and unusual punishment to live in that heat.
David Brown [00:11:04] I want to loop back to that a little bit further, but Christian, can you tell us about a couple of prison facilities where the data shows that excessive heat has been a demonstrable problem?
Christian McDonald [00:11:15] There are several. Garza West is one of those units that had a lot of days that got really, really hot, especially during the summer of 2023, where we had a heat wave throughout. And in that case, there were only 11 days where it did not reach 85 degrees during the summer of 2025. So that’s just last year. In 2023, it reached 95 degrees or above 108 times. So that’s nearly 60% of the days that we recorded during April to September. And it reached 100 degrees indoor 46 times in 2023.
David Brown [00:11:59] Lauren, in your story, you compare the heat in some of these state prisons with standards that are set for county jails, even animal shelters. Right. Okay. So what are those standards and why do, if I understand this correctly, no standards exist in prisons?
Lauren McGaughy [00:12:20] Right. So county jails, many of those facilities are newer and there have been standards existing on the state administrative law books that say they have to keep the indoor temperatures between 65 and 85 degrees. You know, county lockups, you know, just for people who may not be familiar with the criminal justice system. County jails often where you go, you know pre-trial before you’re convicted of something, right? You get thrown in a drunk tank, you get pulled over for a DUI, you’re sitting waiting for trial. That’s county lockup. Prison is post-conviction. You’ve been convicted of a crime. So there’s no direct one-to-one that they wanted the conditions to be poorer in state prisons, but there are better conditions in terms of temperature rules just on that face of it in county lockups where people still have that presumption of innocence, right? Many people have that presumptions of innocence. And then for animal shelters, there’s also temperature rules. They’re not as strict. They keep that 85 degree ceiling as well as best practices as it should not get above 85 for dogs and cats and the like, but if it does, then they have to trigger all of these special fans and extra water and all that kind of thing. Interestingly enough, those same conditions, standards, exist internally for prisons. If it gets too hot, people incarcerated inside these Texas prisons should get extra water, access to fans, but what we hear from the people on the inside as that. The staffing problems are so bad that they don’t have enough staff to actually provide those heat mitigation steps. And so that’s all part of this lawsuit that I mentioned where incarcerated people and advocacy groups are litigating saying, we have lived too long with these disparate standards between lockups. The state needs to actually put into state law right into our laws that there needs to be a 65 to 85 degree. Standard and we need to invest the money for this air-conditioning the prison system admits that it’s hot They say of course we know it gets hot inside but they say we need time and cash from the state legislature to actually make this happen and The advocates believe that without a court order to do that that they can’t get it done
David Brown [00:14:34] Is there any political pushback against, like say for instance, setting a state prison standard the way that these standards are set for jails and even animal shelters? I mean, if you can require county jails to do this, require animal shelters to meet those standards, what is the rationale for not having one for prison?
Lauren McGaughy [00:14:56] You know, I haven’t seen a lot of people saying, let them live that way, but the pushback is usually that the cost is going to be very high. That these are old buildings, the state runs more than a hundred prison units and 60 plus percent of them don’t have full AC. So this is a massive, massive project that we would have to invest a lot of taxpayer money into to actually fix. So, a lot of the pushback is on the complexity. And the cost rather than the issue itself.
David Brown [00:15:29] Has the State Department of Criminal Justice responded to your findings at all or no?
Lauren McGaughy [00:15:35] They didn’t weigh in on the data analysis itself. They have said that they believe that the heat mitigation protocols that they have in place, which like I said include the extra water, fans, et cetera, are enough to keep people safe during these heat waves. And they disagree that the conditions inside amount to cruel and unusual punishment. That’s the argument. That’s a decision that is now before a federal judge and he will ultimately. Make that decision when we go back to court next month.
David Brown [00:16:08] Christian, what did you want to-
Christian McDonald [00:16:08] get involved in this? A lot of it is a learning opportunity for my students who can use these data journalism skills to find and tell stories, and the kind of problems that Lauren brought to us to be able to tell a story that we wouldn’t otherwise be able tell. It’s one thing to go, oh, look at one prison and figure out what it was across a particular day, but to look across all of them against all these months and all years. It takes a little bit more effort and a little different style of looking at it, and it gives my students an opportunity to go through this work.
Jerry Quijano [00:16:47] That was investigative reporter Lauren McGahey and Christian McDonald, associate professor of journalism at UT Austin, talking with Texas Standard’s David Brown. Austin Signal will be back after a break. This is Austin Signal, welcome back to the show. The city of Austin is overflowing with music history, and then of course you have one Willie Nelson, Jason Mellard from the Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University. Tells us about a pair of classic albums from the redheaded stranger.
Jason Mellard [00:17:25] This weekend in Texas music history, Willie Nelson completes two albums in one week with Atlantic Records. In April 1972 Willie Nelson departed Nashville for Austin, returning to the Texas scene that nurtured him. That same year he left his contract with RCA after meeting Atlanta Records mogul Jerry Wexler at a house party. Wexlar, known for his groundbreaking work with Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, was branching out into the sort of progressive country being forged in Austin at the time. He already had a relationship with Doug Somm and is reaching out to Texans freedom fired up. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Sleep at the Wheel, and Lou Ann Barton. Unlike the Nashville majors, Atlantic afforded Nelson the creative autonomy he desired. Wexler encouraged Nelson’s rootsy sound and idiosyncrasies that graded against Nashville norms. So, in early February 1973, Willie Nelson and his family band, along with guests Doug Somm, Waylon Jennings, and Jesse Coulter, traveled to New York City to record not one, but two Nelson albums in quick succession, Shotgun Willie and The Troublemaker. The first album recorded was The Troublemaker, a gospel compilation recorded in honky-tonk style over the span of just two days. Nelson used his band, alongside Doug Psalms, to add breadth to the album’s sound. Unfortunately, Atlantic chose not to release it. The label wanted mischievous, counter-cultural country, but maybe not in the form of gospel that framed Jesus as the original outlaw. It only came out in 1976 after a redheaded stranger had launched Willie into superstardom.
Jerry Quijano [00:18:52] I’m loud today Whiskey river, take my money
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:19:00] Bye! Don’t let her memory torture me
Jason Mellard [00:19:07] They recorded Shotgun Willie later that same week. A combination of originals and covers, including Willie’s definitive version of Johnny Bush’s Whiskey River, the album was a statement of Willie’s new image. The raucous rebel and good timing Buddha, poignant song smith and reluctant leader, a breakthrough album in every sense of the word.
Willie Nelson [00:19:25] I am drowning in a whiskey river
Jason Mellard [00:19:29] You can hear music from the Lone Star State 24-7 on the Texas Music Experience at tmx.fm. I’m Jason Mellard from the Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University.
Willie Nelson [00:19:41] A number of currents flowing from my mind And leaving the heart you left so cold
Jerry Quijano [00:19:53] Super Bowl Sunday is drawing near and for the first time in a while, at least what I can recall, the anticipation for the halftime show is much higher than the actual game itself. Here to tell us more is Maile Carballo from our sister station KUTX. Howdy Maile, how are you?
Maile Carballo [00:20:09] Well, hey, Jerry, I’m doing great. I’m excited for the show.
Jerry Quijano [00:20:12] I’m excited for the game, for the food, and particularly for the show. Who’s gonna be performing on Sunday?
Maile Carballo [00:20:18] Yeah, there’s a star studded lineup. You know, normally at KU-TX, we’re an alternative music station, but we still love our pop artists. And for one, I’m really excited for them. Green Day will be opening the ceremony.
Jerry Quijano [00:20:32] Okay, opening before the game even gets started, right? Yes, sir.
Maile Carballo [00:20:35] Yes sir, yes sir. Charlie Puth will be singing the national anthem. Mr. Perfect Pitch, as people call him. Brandi Carlile, Coco Jones, they’ll be performing as well. And of course, Mr. Bad Bunny, who is in the hot seat of pop culture right now, will be performing at the halftime show.
Jerry Quijano [00:20:53] For sure, definitely in the zeitgeist right now is Bad Bunny, because he has had kind of a crazy week and it’s gonna culminate obviously on Sunday with the Super Bowl halftime performance, but how did it start?
Maile Carballo [00:21:05] Absolutely. Yeah. So last week was the Grammys. He won three Grammies, including having the first Spanish language album ever to win album of the year. That’s kind of like the coveted award at the Grammies. And now he’s making history as the first ever solo Latin headliner at the Super Bowl, super exciting!
Jerry Quijano [00:21:24] And I know that that album has gotten a lot of play and lots of cars and lots of headphones and things like that. What did you enjoy about that album?
Maile Carballo [00:21:34] It’s just a great blend of so many different historical pieces and media and culture. Like there’s a lot of layered in, you know, kind of quotes and different things in that album. And you just, you can’t deny a beat like Bad Bunny brings too.
Jerry Quijano [00:21:51] It’s true, yeah. Even if you’ve never heard the song that you’re about to hear, it’s going to be hard to ignore the rhythm and the groove that’s hitting your body. I think a lot of times these Super Bowl performances are, or can be, career spanning. Last year with Kendrick Lamar, we saw that it was maybe a little bit more focused on his album that had just been released. What do you think Bad Bunny’s going to do? Do you think he’s going focus on these newer songs from his latest album, or maybe try to do Sort of a career retrospective, even though he’s still early in his career.
Maile Carballo [00:22:22] Yeah, I think he’s gonna do a full spread, honestly. You know, his newer songs are really great and are super hot right now, but he’s kind of at a point in his career where he’s trying to take a stance too with all of his fame. You know at the Grammys he used his acceptance speech to kind of address the recent concerns with ICE and I surely believe that he is going to address more at the Super Bowl and really, really make a moment in history.
Jerry Quijano [00:22:49] Okay, Maile, so last question, do you think, you know, the game is between the Seahawks and the Patriots? Do you think that ultimately Monday morning Bad Bunny is going to be the big winner?
Maile Carballo [00:22:59] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is going to be the most talked about 13 minutes for the year so far. And probably for a long time to come. I’m excited.
Jerry Quijano [00:23:07] We will see what Bad Bunny brings to the field on Sunday. And we have been speaking with Maile Carballo. She is from our sister station KUTX. Maile, always great to talk with you on Austin Signal. Thank you, Jerry. And that is it for today’s episode of the show. Thank you for tuning in. We are listener-powered public radio here at KUT News. And we’re going to have a link to the stories that we talked about today in our podcast show notes. And you can find more from us at KUT.org slash Signal. Thank you to Kailey Hunt, Bernice Garcia, Lauren McGaughy, Christian McDonald, the Media Innovation Group fellows, Jason Mellard and Maile Carballo for their help today. Thank you always to Kristen Cabrera and Rayna Sevilla. I’m your host, Jerry Quijano. Austin Signal will be back with you tomorrow. Have a great day.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
