Some schools ban backpacks, citing space and safety issues

Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2005 | 11:28 a.m.

Fed up with cluttered aisles, jostling in the hallways and even a few minor injuries, some Clark County School District principals have done away with what they say was at the root of the problems: backpacks.

"Our halls are very narrow and when kids are turning around and getting hit with those big, heavy bags it can really hurt," said Georgia Taton, principal of Guinn Middle School, which first relegated backpacks to students' lockers last spring. "And once the kids got in the room and dropped those bags that was it, you were stuck."

Guinn, along with at least a half-dozen other Clark County schools, now require students to leave their backpacks at home or in lockers during the academic day.

Administrators say the bans have resulted in students who are better prepared for class, allow for smoother transitions in the hallways as well as fewer reports of theft.

But a handful of parents and students at Grant Sawyer Middle School, which launched its backpack ban with the start of the new academic year last week, aren't happy.

At issue isn't the backpacks but rather that students are also prohibited from carrying pocketbooks, purses, fannypacks or other satchels. All personal items must be stored in lockers, which students have access to during the day.

Girls will have to use a plastic pouch clipped inside their binders to store feminine hygiene items such as sanitary napkins or tampons, one parent complained to the Sun.

"There's no privacy, everyone can see it and if she takes her binder with her when she leaves the room everyone will know why," said the parent, who asked not to be identified to try to protect her daughter from reprisals. "That's going to open kids up to all kinds of teasing."

But Sawyer Principal Kim Friel, who said she met with a half-dozen parents earlier this week to discuss their opposition to the ban, disagreed. Students are allowed to go to their lockers during the day and girls could easily retrieve necessary items at that time, Friel said.

Friel said she decided to explore the idea of a ban after a fire marshal, on campus for a routine drill last year, pointed out that the cumbersome bags left in the classroom aisles were a safety hazard.

"We actually had a teacher sprain her ankle last year tripping over a backpack," Friel said.

The ban was launched after discussions with the school's parents committee, Friel said.

"This was something we gathered community input on. It was not a last-minute policy I decided overnight," Friel said.

Teachers at Sawyer planned over the summer that all handouts and homework assignments would fit inside a single, three-ring binder so that students would not have to juggle multiple notebooks.

At schools that ban backpacks, students leave their personal textbooks at home for studying and share communal copies installed in all of the classrooms during the day. The bans only work at campuses that have enough lockers to go around as well as extra textbooks.

The 2005 Legislature approved a continued allocation of $50 per student for textbooks and Clark County officials have encouraged schools to use the funds for classroom sets whenever possible.

As the dismissal bell rang at Guinn Friday, students flocked to their rows of lockers located in the campus cafeteria to retrieve their belongings. Eighth grader Tiffany Shapouri, who transferred to Guinn this year from Los Angeles, said she "definitely" prefers her new school's policy to the old days of needing an oversized backpack.

"I hated it. It cramped up my back," Shapouri said. "At my old school we only got one set of (text)books so we couldn't leave them at home or we got yelled at."

Michelle Gimenez, a seventh grader at Guinn, said the backpack ban has forced her to become more organized. And the lighter bag is easier to carry on the walk home from the bus stop, she said.

Her classmate, Andrew Sesta, said he's also learned to do without a backpack. He has two binders, one for his morning classes and a second one for the periods in the afternoon.

"At lunch I go to my locker and switch," Sesta said. "It's easier to move around without everybody carrying big bags."

Leanne Rankin, whose daughter started sixth grade at Guinn this week said the ban "has its pros and cons."

She agrees with school administrators that it's safer not to have oversized bags cluttering walkways. But the ban may be making the transition from elementary to middle school tougher on some of the school's newest additions, Rankin said.

"It's overwhelming for the sixth graders, suddenly they're changing rooms for all their classes and there's not enough time between periods to go to your locker if you forget something," Rankin said. "I think the kids feel a little more secure if they have all their stuff with them from the start."

Paul Garbiso, assistant superintendent of the district's southwest region, which includes both Sawyer and Guinn, said the backpack ban has full support from the central office administration.

"It's really a health and safety issue," Garbiso said. "There have been plenty of reports that say it's not good for kids to be lugging around those heavy bags if it can be avoided."

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons recommends that backpacks be no heavier than 15 to 20 percent of a child's body weight. Warning signs that a child is carrying too heavy a load included red marks left on the skin by shoulder straps, inability to stand up straight once the backpack is in place as well as tingling, numbness or pain, according to the medical organization.09