The Many Problems With Backpack Bans

How would you feel about your middle school kid having to go in front of her class and alert her teacher when she is menstruating? This is the policy my kid’s school — East Central Middle School — has inadvertently implemented by imposing a strict no bag rule. 

Let me explain. 

With three teenagers in Tulsa Public Schools, we get a lot of notifications, many of which don’t directly apply to us. At times, the amount of information can be so overwhelming that even working from home, it’s easy to overlook important notifications. So it wasn’t until we were getting ready to take our eighth grader to school on the first day, the kiddo having carefully packed a backpack full of books, supplies, and personal gear, that my husband remembered he had seen the school’s new backpack policy — ironically sent in an email right above a notification about a free backpack event. 

After rereading the policy and clarifying that the no backpack policy did not include purses, I quickly grabbed a large over-the-shoulder bag for the kiddo so at least she could return her library books and have something in which to carry her pencils and hygiene supplies. Problem solved. 

Two hours later, she texted me: “Got my bag taken away.” When I called the school to express my concern about the implications for menstruating students, I was told that all of the bathrooms should be stocked with menstrual products, but if students don’t prefer those or the bathroom is out of pads, they are welcome to visit the nurse. 

Here’s an excerpt from the statement I received from my contact at the school:

First, I confirmed that the restrooms will be stocked with the products all the ladies will need.  I understand your concern with this, so I wanted to verify that immediately. I also did verify in the case that the restroom was to run out in the future the nurse would have available supplies for them as well. The nurse informed me that she always has necessities for the girls as well. 

If your daughter absolutely feels better bringing her own supplies, you yourself can bring them in for her to the office and we will let the nurse keep them in her office.  Your daughter can then get them from the nurse when she needs to. Yes, she will need to inform the teacher she needs to go to the nurse, but all teachers were informed that they can do this if they need to. It will however make for an easier situation if they use the products in the lady’s room.

While I applaud the school’s efforts to supply menstrual hygiene products to all students — the need for which has been empirically linked to school absenteeism in girls — the school’s backpack and purse ban will force many students to disclose their menstrual cycles to teachers and the school nurse by denying them the ability to carry hygiene products on their person. 

Backpack Bans Deny Students Menstrual Autonomy

There should be nothing innately political about suggesting that all students who need them should have the right to carry their own menstrual supplies and manage their own menstrual needs while at school without having to inform anyone, particularly an adult male teacher. My daughter told me that the school made an announcement that they have plenty of female teachers to ask, but her concern is that when kids need hygiene products, they usually can’t afford to wait an hour or longer until they get to class with a female teacher. And even then, that means having to go in front of the class. 

According to Oklahoma School Report Cards, ECMS had an enrollment of 987 students in 2023. I don’t have the data on how many are menstruating, but let’s imagine that half of those are girls. 90 percent of girls are menstruating by age 13, so I think it’s fair to guess that means the school needs to supply menstrual hygiene products for around 400 girls each month. 

To say I have little faith in the school that frequently kept bathrooms locked last year to ensure every bathroom is stocked with adequate menstrual supplies that cater to individual needs on a daily basis is an understatement. 

Young teenagers often have irregular periods and aren’t always aware of their cycles, so it’s easy to end up in a situation where they don’t realize they’re menstruating until it’s a problem. Say a teen or tween has to go to the bathroom after realizing they are about to be bleeding through their jeans. They get a bathroom pass only to realize the bathroom is out of supplies. If students simply head to the nurse’s office, which could be pretty far from some classrooms, without telling a teacher, there is a non-zero chance that they could get in trouble for taking off without permission. 

So now they’ve got to go ask their teacher in front of the class to visit the nurse’s office, an act which in and of itself arguably further stigmatizes menstruation as a medical issue rather than a natural human body function — which is even more concerning when we’re dealing the formative adolescent years when many young women struggle to be comfortable with their bodies. This also means having to disclose that they are menstruating to a teacher, nurse, and/or classmates via the simple act of having to address a teacher in a class of 35 kids — which would be concerning under normal circumstances, but is even more concerning in a time when womens’ reproductive rights are increasingly under attack. 

To boot, anything that keeps our girls out of class longer than they need to be is denying them the same equal access to education as their male counterparts. Factor in the reality that some teachers limit students’ time on bathroom breaks, and the problem becomes even more compounded. 

Now imagine having to go through this once a month. It doesn’t take a nursing degree to know there are many girls who won’t feel comfortable doing that, which means they’ll end up resorting to ye olde DIY pad — toilet paper — which is directly linked to vaginal infections when used as a menstrual product.  

And realistically, no student should have to worry about these things for up to five days out of a month when simply allowing them to carry a purse or bag with any personal items they need for school would give them the autonomy they need. The bottom line: menstrual autonomy is a human right, and by forcing our kids to use school-supplied menstrual products or alert the nurse, we are stripping our kids of this human right and of dignity at a crucial time in their physical and psychological development.

As the United Nations reproductive health agency UNFPA put it, “Everyone has a right to bodily autonomy. The ability to care for one’s body while menstruating is an essential part of this fundamental freedom.”

Compounding the challenges these students face, most ECMS students represent racial or socioeconomic minorities that often face additional barriers to opportunity. East Central Middle School’s student body is 62.2 percent Hispanic, 11.1 percent Black, 6.8 percent Asian, 3.5 percent Indigenous American, and 4.7 percent multiracial. 89.43 percent of the student body is considered economically disadvantaged, 17.36 percent of students have disabilities, and 63.2 percent of the school’s students are English Language Learners, meaning English is not the student’s primary language. 

The school also has a chronic absentee rate of 43.57%

Backpack Bans May Also Discourage Reading

The fact that backpack and purse bans force kids to make their menstruation cycle public knowledge is a disturbing enough reason on its own to find better policies. But in a time when kids are spending less time reading books than ever and calls for censorship, particularly aimed at books that teenagers can access, are on the rise, we have a crisis of learning on our hands. As the second-worst state in the country for education outcomes at 49th out of 50 states, Oklahoma cannot afford to do anything that discourages its youth from reading. But by taking away their backpacks and bags and instead forcing kids to carry their books, school supplies, and anything else they might need, backpack bans give kids a reason to skip the library altogether. 

As my youngest put it, “If you don’t have a bag, you’re less likely to take a book…and it’s not even students’ fault if they lose an item because the halls are very cramped and full of people running, shoving, and pushing. If somebody loses their items, that is not on them — it’s due to the fact that they are required to take around textbooks, pencils, paper, and supplies. If I arrive to class and I’m missing a textbook that was dropped in the halls, that is entirely the school’s fault for their bad policy that forces us to carry around items that could easily go in a bag. Even the teachers don’t like it. One of my teachers specifically said that we should at least have small bags.”

When I was a middle schooler, books were my lifeline. I would shove as many as I could fit in my backpack along with my textbooks and school supplies. Two of my kids are the same way — their backpacks are full of books and manga, which they voraciously read. I’ve seen these kids polish off two or three books in a night. 

East Central Middle School is a fairly sizable school. But the high school it feeds into, which also has a backpack ban, is a five-story building where students are often forced to jog up and down flights of stairs in the few minutes of their passing period. While they typically have fewer textbooks to lug around these days (my youngest has one workbook), students still have to keep track of their pencils, notebooks, jackets, water bottle, phone (even if they aren’t allowed in school, many kids need them for safety reasons on the walk home) and library books as they bound up and down those stairs and in and out of classrooms all day, with many kids having to walk up to a mile home after school. 

Book kids are always going to find a way to carry their stacks of books, But in a world where education and access to literature are under continued attack, the idea of putting any potential barrier between kids and books should serve as yet another mark against backpack bans. 

Backpack Bans are Not a Solution

I’ve been troubled by the implications of the no backpack policy for girls ever since my sons’ school, East Central High School, banned backpacks last year. At the time, I was concerned about the implications for neurodivergent students, since students with, say, autism or ADHD can often struggle with sensory issues and the challenge of having to carry several items like books and school supplies up and down the five flights of stairs at my sons’ high school. In fact, I asked my autistic son’s IEP be modified so that he could have access to a backpack for that very reason. 

At the time, the boys’ school offered very little in the way of solid reasoning to support their backpack policy other than stating that it was a security measure. The response from ECMS has been even more vague: “I know the no bag rule has been upsetting to some, but it has helped with many issues.”

According to my youngest kiddo, “One student asked why they were doing this. Their reply was, in these exact words, ‘It’s a school policy.’ That is not an answer to the question. They’re asking why it was implemented — the school basically responded, ‘It was implemented.’ “

So being the research geek that I am, I wanted to find out why backpack bans seem to be on the rise and what, if any, benefit they have. 

I did some digging, and I quickly found a few arguments suggesting the ban was meant to keep alcohol, drugs, and weapons off campus — all of which I know both from being a kid myself and from having two rather observant sons in high school that students tend to carry in their pockets as often as in their backpacks. 

When I asked my sixteen-year-olds whether the backpack ban did anything to curb drug use in their school, they laughed heartily and told me that entire hallways regularly smell like a dispensary, and some kids will even vape at the back of the classroom when the teacher isn’t looking. 

Importantly, I found absolutely no data supporting a drop in violence or weapons use in schools as a result of backpack bans. 

While it is true that many school gun seizures involve guns found in backpacks — as outlined in a Washington Post examination of the issue — many school gun violence incidents are caused by kids bringing weapons on their bodies hidden inside of their jackets or clothing. In a small sample of school shootings, the United States Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center did find that more than half of school shooters carried their weapons in a backpack, bag, or guitar case. But the rest carried their weapons in their waistbands or openly on their person. Remember that six-year-old who shot his teacher? An adult had searched his backpack and found nothing because his weapon was in his pocket during the search. If a six-year-old can hide their gun in their pants, there’s no reason to think a backpack ban will keep an eighth grader from doing the same. 

As the New York Times reported in a May 2023 piece about backpack bans in Flint, Michigan, even the pioneers of backpack ban policies freely admit that there is no data supporting the efficacy of such a program. And as The Washington Post pointed out, even metal detectors and clear backpacks fail to stop guns from coming in a school’s side doors.  

In fact, many advocates of backpack bans know this, which is why when you research backpack policies, you’ll find that one of the the primary arguments for banning backpacks is not safety from weapons but the claim that backpacks clutter up the hallways and aisles followed by some half-hearted references to the possibility that backpacks could cause back pain. 

That, to me, is not a worthwhile trade-off for our daughters’ health and well-being. It’s just another lazy policy that inadvertently treats women as second-class citizens.

One of the ironies about the way backpack bans asymmetrically impact girls is the fact that clothing for girls and women tends to be designed without pockets or with ornamental pockets that hold very little, whereas boys’ and mens’ clothing often feature roomy and plentiful pockets. It’s even more ironic when you consider that out of 144 mass shooters in the United States since 1982, 98 percent of shooters have been male. Among the six shooters who were female, one-third of acts were committed with male accomplices. 

A Call for Evidence-Based Solutions

The troubling anti-woman implications of what already appeared to be a performative, feckless, and ableist policy hit home when my child’s middle school adopted it. But in retrospect, it should have come as no surprise since in our five or so years of experience with East Central Middle School, we’ve seen the revolving door of admins at that school arbitrarily implement a mixed bag of policies that were sure to solve their problems, picking them up and then dropping them like bad cards in an Uno deck.

For a while, the kids could wear hoodies.Then they couldn’t. Then they could again. One year, the school unexpectedly instituted a uniform policy, forcing us to go out and pick up a whole new wardrobe for the kid. Then they shifted to a more relaxed policy, allowing kids to wear whatever pants they wanted for the most part and any shirt of the correct color. At one point, the admins started locking the bathrooms and requiring kids to get a key. When I pushed back on this after verifying with Child Protective Services that denying children access to a restroom is child abuse, I was told the kids couldn’t be trusted. 

This is the same school, by the way, that for much of one year did not hire a full-time teacher for one of my child’s classes, instead filling the role with substitute after substitute. On two occasions, my kid called me to tell me her class was being warehoused in the auditorium and she was concerned because it was way past her lunchtime. The fact that East Central Middle School ranks an abysmal “F” grade on Oklahoma School Report Cards should come as a surprise to non one. 

The idea that a school with this track record would presume to strip our daughters of the basic human right to menstrual autonomy without drawing attention to themselves or having to tell an adult that they are menstruating — particularly in light of recent efforts to encroach upon womens’ reproductive rights — before taking simple measures like reminding parents about basic gun safety or working to create safe avenues for anonymous tips from students is unconscionable. 

I understand from my own experience in education that school administrators face a number of problems and pressures that often make their jobs next to impossible. What I’ll never understand is why, when they can’t even get teachers in the classroom, are they wasting time and energy micromanaging students’ bathroom breaks and clothing with policies that have not been shown to in any way benefit student safety other than the fact that it feels like they’re doing something — anything — under community and administrative-level pressure to cut school behavior problems and violence. 

And I can understand the need to do something. The problem is that no matter how well-intentioned they may be, policies based on anything other than evidence are doing nothing to protect our kids. They also create a false sense of security that detracts from the grim realities we all need to face: that our kids are no safer in schools, and that school shootings have dramatically risen since 1970, 

As one Grand Rapids student conveyed when her district implemented a backpack ban, “Just taking away backpacks doesn’t solve the problem. There’s many different ways people could sneak those types of things into school. I feel like they could have asked the community, ‘What do you think we should do?’“ 

With no research supporting the efficacy of backpack bans, the only reason to implement these policies is because other districts are doing it or because of pressure from higher-level administrators. 

The good news is that we actually do have evidence-based solutions that have been proven to dramatically reduce school shootings and violence. According to the Washington Post, implementing systems that allow students and members of the community to anonymously report tips, particularly when coupled with developing trust-based relationships with the student body, has a measurable impact on school violence. The Post reported that one such system has averted at least 15 school shootings since 2018. 

We also know from cases like the Oxford High School shooting that parents can play a role in preventing school shootings by taking steps to prevent their kids from accessing guns. Reinforcing basic principles of gun safety to parents should be something we can all get behind regardless of any political beliefs about the Second Amendment — think of it like fire safety. 

Education administrators who truly take their jobs as custodians of the future to heart owe it to our kids to put the work into seeking and implementing evidence-based policies that actually help our kids without discouraging them from reading or forcing them to disclose private information about their menstrual health. 

A so-called solution that fails to do anything isn’t a solution at all. When that solution causes more problems than it solves, it needs to be thrown out completely. 

In the meantime, I am lending my foraging pockets -— external pockets that tie on like an apron – to the kiddo so she could have adequate pockets to haul her books, pads, and water bottle. They’re almost as big as a small bag — that is, about the same size as the cargo pants pockets her male classmates have the privilege to wear. 

Thank you for reading, and have a lovely week in your little nebula. 

Editor’s Note: Kristi was interviewed on this topic for an article published on New York Magazine’s “The Cut.” Read that article at thecut.com/article/school-backpack-bans-periods.html