Dallas ISD’s clear backpack policy appears to be getting some pushback from community members who question whether the protocol is actually an effective security measure.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Dallas ISD required all students in grades 6-12 to use a clear or mesh backpack for the 2022-2023 school year. It also recently announced that it was expanding the rule to its elementary schools.
The original plan was adopted in the months following the Uvalde school shooting in May 2022, which left 19 children and two teachers dead and prompted calls for campus security improvements throughout the state.
“It doesn’t address the fact that the students are not necessarily the ones who are enacting these acts of violence,” said Dallas ISD parent LaDerica McNairy, according to Dallas Weekly.
Criminologist Alex del Carmen of Tarleton State University seemed to agree in part but also noted that it is unclear whether some benefit could come from the policy, which Mesquite ISD also adopted.
“To say that … clear backpacks are going to make such a difference that we don’t have to worry about school shootings anymore, or threats to a school … would be obviously an overstatement. But to say also that they’re not going to help, you know, we have no evidence to suggest that either,” he said, CBS News Texas reported.
Dallas ISD has seen its share of gunplay over the last year, with a school shooting taking place in the parking lot of a North Dallas campus in March. As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde blamed the incident on the prevalence of violence in Dallas proper.
Last year, a Dallas ISD elementary school student managed to get a firearm inside John Carpenter Elementary School. The gun was discharged, however, no one was injured.
“I understand the premise behind it, but I think that it would be better to have other additional resources at the school, like emotional regulation, training or conflict-resolution training. … Cause if you look at it, clear bags didn’t just start. I had to have a mesh backpack in high school myself … and that was like 15 years ago,” McNairy told Dallas Weekly.
Other state initiatives to bolster security were advanced over the last year, including a new state law requiring an armed guard to be stationed at every public school campus. The law takes effect on September 1.
Dallas ISD’s executive director of strategic engagement and crisis communications, Robyn Harris, previously told The Dallas Express that the district will be in full compliance with the law by the time the 2023-2024 school year starts, suggesting that most of its campuses had armed security guards except for the elementary schools.