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Some high school administrators charged with keeping their students safe are zeroing in on a potential vulnerability: the purses many teenage girls say they can't live without.
Educators in Minnesota, Kentucky, Florida and elsewhere are banning purses from classrooms, saying students can hide weapons or drugs inside. Their security concerns have grown as purses have. Some bulky purses are the size of backpacks, which many schools restrict.
"With the recent shootings and the threats that we had this year, I don't want to take the risk," says Jeff Sampson, assistant principal of Winona Senior High School in Winona, Minn. A shooting threat prompted a lockdown at the school in October.
The previous month, the 1,400-student school had broadened its existing backpack restriction to include purses. Now, students must keep purses in their lockers unless they have an approved medical reason to carry one, such as needing to carry a medical device that won't fit in their pocket. He wouldn't be more specific.
Students are allowed to take small pencil bags to class, Sampson says.
No one keeps statistics on the trend, but the National Association of Secondary School Principals agrees that more schools are adding purses to their restrictions on backpacks and other large bags. "You shouldn't underestimate how prudent school officials have to be," says Dick Flanary, the group's director of professional development.
Some students say the purse ban goes too far. Abby Kowitz, 16, of Fergus Falls, Minn., says she and her friends carry ChapStick, gum, pens and, when necessary, feminine hygiene products in their purses. Last month, officials at Fergus Falls High School told them their purses, like backpacks, would have to remain in lockers during class.
"We allow students, both female and male, to carry a small bag," Assistant Principal Tindyl Rund says. "It can hold pencils, a calculator, ChapStick -- we showed the students several examples. We have termed them 'hand-size.'"
Kowitz, a junior, says she and her friends consider the policy "kind of pointless." "If someone wants to bring a weapon to school, not being able to carry a purse won't stop them," she says.
Sophomore Rebecca Stenstrom, 15, says it's important that girls have personal items close at hand, and she worries about leaving valuable items such as an MP3 player in her locker. "Even the guys think the girls need to be able to carry their purses," she says.
Rund says students who need feminine products can take their purses to the bathroom between classes, visit the school nurse or carry what they need in their "hand-size bag."
Restricting purses to lockers also reduces clutter and crowding, she says.
"Some of the purses were getting so huge," says Michael Blevins, principal of Conner High School in Hebron, Ky. The 1,650-student school expanded its backpack policy to include purses in October, he says. Pencil bags are allowed in classrooms.
"We have overcrowding in our school," he says. "Purses were banging into people in our hallways."
Restricting purses to lockers isn't a foolproof way to keep drugs, weapons or any prohibited items off campus, Blevins acknowledges, but they're less accessible. "If they're in a locker, I'm not saying it couldn't harm somebody, but it would have decreased the amount."
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