13 YO Boy suspended for carrying a purse

[SoybeanQueen]

What are the students supposed to do about personal supplies, like a brush or tampons or money ?

In the school where this news story happened, their lockers are in the same hallway as the classrooms. If they need something like that, they can easily grab it between classes or when they have a hall pass for a bathroom break.

[dilannsmom]

Tampons and pads I can see being an issue not having them with you, but the school isn't going to make a rule that only girls can carry bags to class, so they're in lockers as well.

At my daughter's middle school students can carry bags that are "not large enough to fit a book." The point of the rule--girls can carry tampons/pads with them. Of course, any student can carry a purse, but in all reality, the rule is all about the girls! May be a sexist rule, but it does leave it wide open for boys who want a Vera Bradley bag...

[silverspoons]

We do not have lockers or books in So. Utah. The textbooks are all online and due to the common core there is no reading requirement (like novels). My son does have a binder for each class, 8 classes per semester. I bought spent $150 on a german made messenger style bag (those ones that are suppose to last for life), and it lasted 2 years. We are on to some super traveler airline bag, (for people who just use carry ons). Sometimes the bag weighs 40+ pounds , lucky my son is a big kid but I worry how my much shorter daughter will handle the no lockers.

The books online at first got me mad. One the internet is costly and very unreliable. Now I pay for DSL and broadband every month to ensure my kids can access the books. The online books are pretty cool, like science you read about the rainforest and then you can click on a video of the rain forest. I am one of the few people that does buy some actual textbooks just in case online.

I always say my kids school here is too conservative but my daughters best guy friend has a purse, monster high dolls, a rainbow loom, and an American girl doll. He wears pink skinny jeans and the school loves him.

[Mama Mia]

We do not have lockers or books in So. Utah. The textbooks are all online and due to the common core there is no reading requirement (like novels). My son does have a binder for each class, 8 classes per semester. I bought spent $150 on a german made messenger style bag (those ones that are suppose to last for life), and it lasted 2 years. We are on to some super traveler airline bag, (for people who just use carry ons). Sometimes the bag weighs 40+ pounds , lucky my son is a big kid but I worry how my much shorter daughter will handle the no lockers.

The books online at first got me mad. One the internet is costly and very unreliable. Now I pay for DSL and broadband every month to ensure my kids can access the books. The online books are pretty cool, like science you read about the rainforest and then you can click on a video of the rain forest. I am one of the few people that does buy some actual textbooks just in case online.

I always say my kids school here is too conservative but my daughters best guy friend has a purse, monster high dolls, a rainbow loom, and an American girl doll. He wears pink skinny jeans and the school loves him.

Yeah, this whole everything being on line thing concerns me. It's fantastic if schools are giving out iPads, but expecting every home to have DSL is really unrealistic. I know kids can go to the library or a hotspot, but it puts poorer kids at an unfair disadvatage.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

What's the point of all this draconian banning of bags?

[2xx1xy1JD]

What's the point of all this draconian banning of bags?

I assume it's a security measure, so that a potential school shooter doesn't hide a weapon in a bag.

[docmom]

What's the point of all this draconian banning of bags?

No gun control + school shootings= ban on backpacks. Of course, it'd make more sense to ban the guns, but since they can't, the kids suffer...

[louisa05]

@Louisa05, I'm actually shocked. How do they teach without books? Lecture style only?

It's Alabama. They barely taught. He read "Number the Stars" in 10th grade lit class--not a low level class mind you--but at least there was a book for that class. (If anyone doesn't know that is a book with a reading level for ages 8-10 that is often taught around sixth grade due to content). His Civil War unit in a 9th grade history class consisted of watching "Gone With the Wind". He never did research at all (which is causing him some difficulties now in his first semester of college), and until he moved here to the Midwest to live with his dad for his senior year, had never had to write a paper longer than two paragraphs long.

As to other questions about no bags/access to lockers...

Most kids really don't need to carry money at all anymore. Most schools are using a system at lunch where students have a prepaid account and a pin number or ID scan system. They get the food they want and enter the number on a key pad or have their student ID scanned and their account is charged. At the schools I have been in, no money is exchanged in the lunch room ever as accounts must be paid in a student services office at another time (typically before school). This is used from kindergarten up in most districts.

(Again...so many things have changed about how school operates).

Honestly, I believe that the issue of girls having access to tampons/pads when they need them is a bigger issue than even a bag to carry them in. High schools (unlike middle or elementary schools) tend to treat the bathroom like a rare and high privilege. In my last few years of full time teaching, I became particularly irritated by the fact that I was supposed to determine when fully grown 17-18 year old people could or could not go to the bathroom. I actually implemented a policy that students could signal me when they were going to the restroom and then go. I told them if I felt anyone was abusing that, it would be addressed individually. My students actually went to the bathroom LESS and were in the bathroom for a shorter time when they could freely go and it was not a problem. But the administration found out and I was forced to go back to two bathroom passes per nine weeks with verbal and written permission required. That was a comparatively generous policy because they got two passes per class per nine weeks. At one school I sub at, students are allowed four bathroom passes in total per 18 week semester. Additionally, at that school, the bathrooms are locked during lunch hours. I think without my specifically saying, you can see that the problem for teen girls when menstruating is even bigger than whether they can easily access their supplies--many of them can hardly access the bathroom in the first place. It is draconian, quite frankly.

On online texts: I have talked with some teachers about what issues and problems have come up with using online texts. The problem of families not having internet access is a huge one (and an oddly unanticipated one in my own community--I was told that they literally did not consider that as a potential problem before implementation). They have added the provision that families may request, at no cost, a physical textbook to be kept at home if needed. In my opinion, this problem will become a bigger issue in the future because textbook companies may very well eventually choose to not market some texts in a physical form. We need to address the issue of the digital divide sooner rather than later.

[SoybeanQueen]

So the local paper published a follow up story today. They had an interview with a girl who was a student when the bag ban went into effect 13 years ago. She apparently wrote an essay of some sort pleading with the admins to let them keep carrying bags. The rule was put into place because of those studies that came out regarding kids carrying heavy backpacks and doing damage to their backs, etc.

But, even more interesting was that the boy with the purse did go back on part of his story when interviewed by the paper. He had been carrying the bag *to school* since August, but the teacher in question is well-known as an enforcer of the no bag rule, and he had only brought the bag into that class a couple of times. The teacher asked him to put the bag in his locker those times, and he complied. So he was not unaware that he was breaking a rule, nor had he taken the bag into that class daily since August with no trouble.

Even more interesting is that disciplinary issues are assigned points in that school. If it's a serious incident, you might get enough points all at once to warrant suspension. This student only received two points for the disrespect regarding the purse because instead of putting it in his locker as asked, he went to the principal's office and used profanity there. He was not sent to the office, according to a student who was in the class. He was suspended because he had already accrued 5 other discipline points and the two additional meant that he was suspended for a day.

There was also an interview with another openly gay student on the high school side of the building. He said the administration has always taken his concerns about anti-gay behavior very seriously and that he does not feel the school is unfriendly when it comes to sexual orientation.

Of course, this part of the story will not go viral like the initial one did, so now our district is stuck fielding thousands of angry emails and calls. Awesome.