1,000 signatures reached
To: PT Administrators and School Board members
Bring Backpacks Back to Penn-Trafford High School
TLDR: In order to protect privacy of students and promote efficiency, we request backpacks back in the classroom.
Student safety is extremely important, and I know that the administration has a responsibility to create a safe and secure learning environment. My concern is not with that goal. My concern is whether completely prohibiting backpacks, purses, fanny packs, and essentially all other carrying bags is the most effective or practical way to accomplish it.
One of our biggest concerns is student privacy, particularly for menstruating students. Under the new policy, students are permitted to carry only a clear pencil pouch no larger than seven and a half by ten inches. That means a student who needs menstrual products or other private personal-care items either has to carry them visibly in a clear pouch or leave them in their locker.
If those products are kept in a locker, a student who unexpectedly needs one during class has to leave instruction, use SmartPass, walk to their locker, retrieve the item, and return. Depending on where that student’s locker and classroom are located, that can take a significant amount of time. During a lecture, quiz, or test, that lost time matters.
It may also put students in situations where they feel that they need to explain a private bodily issue to a teacher or administrator in order to justify why they need to leave class again or why they have exceeded a SmartPass time limit. Students should not have to choose between displaying personal products publicly and sacrificing instructional time to maintain their privacy.
There are also broader problems involving access to normal school supplies.
A seven-and-a-half-by-ten-inch pencil pouch simply cannot contain everything students may reasonably need throughout the day. Students carry chargers, calculators, planners, notebooks, books, project materials, folders, and supplies specific to certain courses.
Without some type of carrying bag, students will either have to physically juggle these items through the hallways or make significantly more trips to their lockers.
That raises another concern for us students. The handbook says that this policy is intended to create an efficient learning environment. However, if hundreds of students are making additional locker trips before class, during passing periods, and sometimes during instruction, I worry that the policy could actually create more hallway traffic and more lost instructional time rather than less.
Locker location also matters. Not every student’s locker is conveniently located near every one of their classes. With limited passing time, students may have to choose between going to their locker for necessary materials and getting to class on time.
The policy regulates the container rather than directly addressing the prohibited item.
Students also continue to have access to their lockers throughout the school day. So if a prohibited item were brought into the building and stored in a locker, preventing students from carrying that bag from class to class would not remove the prohibited item from school property.
If preventing weapons from entering the school is the concern, then measures that screen what is actually entering the building, such as walk-through metal detectors or other appropriate entry-screening systems, address that concern far more directly than prohibiting ordinary students from carrying bags throughout the school day.
Otherwise, we risk creating a policy that is highly visible and highly inconvenient, but does not substantially prevent someone who has already decided to violate far more serious rules.
Students who come to school every day intending to learn are the students most likely to follow this policy. Someone who intends to bring a weapon, vape, or other prohibited item into school has already decided to violate district rules. That is why prevention strategies should focus as directly as possible on detecting and preventing the prohibited item or behavior itself rather than placing the greatest burden on the students who were never creating the problem.
There are several possible compromises the district could consider, including clear backpacks, size-restricted bags, school-approved bags, or allowing students a small opaque pouch for private personal-care items. The district could also establish clear exceptions for medical, accessibility, academic, and athletic needs.
We are not asking the district to ignore safety concerns. I am asking that we consider whether there is a less restrictive and more directly effective way to address those concerns without creating unnecessary problems involving privacy, accessibility, instructional time, and students’ ability to function throughout a normal school day.
School safety matters. But a good safety policy should not only appear to increase safety. It should be practical, effective, proportionate to the problem it is trying to solve, and supported by a clear explanation of how it actually reduces that problem.
The student body respectfully asks the Board and administration to reconsider the current policy, hear student concerns before it is fully implemented, and explore alternatives that protect both student safety and students’ ability to learn effectively.
Thank you.
Student safety is extremely important, and I know that the administration has a responsibility to create a safe and secure learning environment. My concern is not with that goal. My concern is whether completely prohibiting backpacks, purses, fanny packs, and essentially all other carrying bags is the most effective or practical way to accomplish it.
One of our biggest concerns is student privacy, particularly for menstruating students. Under the new policy, students are permitted to carry only a clear pencil pouch no larger than seven and a half by ten inches. That means a student who needs menstrual products or other private personal-care items either has to carry them visibly in a clear pouch or leave them in their locker.
If those products are kept in a locker, a student who unexpectedly needs one during class has to leave instruction, use SmartPass, walk to their locker, retrieve the item, and return. Depending on where that student’s locker and classroom are located, that can take a significant amount of time. During a lecture, quiz, or test, that lost time matters.
It may also put students in situations where they feel that they need to explain a private bodily issue to a teacher or administrator in order to justify why they need to leave class again or why they have exceeded a SmartPass time limit. Students should not have to choose between displaying personal products publicly and sacrificing instructional time to maintain their privacy.
There are also broader problems involving access to normal school supplies.
A seven-and-a-half-by-ten-inch pencil pouch simply cannot contain everything students may reasonably need throughout the day. Students carry chargers, calculators, planners, notebooks, books, project materials, folders, and supplies specific to certain courses.
Without some type of carrying bag, students will either have to physically juggle these items through the hallways or make significantly more trips to their lockers.
That raises another concern for us students. The handbook says that this policy is intended to create an efficient learning environment. However, if hundreds of students are making additional locker trips before class, during passing periods, and sometimes during instruction, I worry that the policy could actually create more hallway traffic and more lost instructional time rather than less.
Locker location also matters. Not every student’s locker is conveniently located near every one of their classes. With limited passing time, students may have to choose between going to their locker for necessary materials and getting to class on time.
The policy regulates the container rather than directly addressing the prohibited item.
Students also continue to have access to their lockers throughout the school day. So if a prohibited item were brought into the building and stored in a locker, preventing students from carrying that bag from class to class would not remove the prohibited item from school property.
If preventing weapons from entering the school is the concern, then measures that screen what is actually entering the building, such as walk-through metal detectors or other appropriate entry-screening systems, address that concern far more directly than prohibiting ordinary students from carrying bags throughout the school day.
Otherwise, we risk creating a policy that is highly visible and highly inconvenient, but does not substantially prevent someone who has already decided to violate far more serious rules.
Students who come to school every day intending to learn are the students most likely to follow this policy. Someone who intends to bring a weapon, vape, or other prohibited item into school has already decided to violate district rules. That is why prevention strategies should focus as directly as possible on detecting and preventing the prohibited item or behavior itself rather than placing the greatest burden on the students who were never creating the problem.
There are several possible compromises the district could consider, including clear backpacks, size-restricted bags, school-approved bags, or allowing students a small opaque pouch for private personal-care items. The district could also establish clear exceptions for medical, accessibility, academic, and athletic needs.
We are not asking the district to ignore safety concerns. I am asking that we consider whether there is a less restrictive and more directly effective way to address those concerns without creating unnecessary problems involving privacy, accessibility, instructional time, and students’ ability to function throughout a normal school day.
School safety matters. But a good safety policy should not only appear to increase safety. It should be practical, effective, proportionate to the problem it is trying to solve, and supported by a clear explanation of how it actually reduces that problem.
The student body respectfully asks the Board and administration to reconsider the current policy, hear student concerns before it is fully implemented, and explore alternatives that protect both student safety and students’ ability to learn effectively.
Thank you.
Why is this important?
This policy affects every student’s ability to learn comfortably and efficiently. By signing this petition, you can make sure student concerns about privacy, accessibility, lost instructional time, and safety are heard by the people making these decisions. This not a petition against school safety; it is a petition for a policy that protects while also respecting students privacy and needs. The more students and parents who respectfully speak up, the stronger our message becomes and the more likely it is that our administration will seriously consider a better solution.