THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 16, 1995 TAG: 9508160479
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BARCO LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
Currituck County High School students will not have to carry mesh or clear book bags when they return to school next week, as had been required in the school handbook.
Principal Richard Wardle said Monday evening that the new policy was nixed after negotiations with students, who had protested the book bag change.
``Students are going to help us monitor (activities),'' Wardle said. ``When we move into the new school, all book bags will go into lockers, and we won't have to worry about it anymore.''
School teachers and administrators had proposed allowing only see-through book bags to be carried to classes in order to enhance security on campus by discouraging students from hiding drugs and weapons inside the large bags.
Teachers also complained that the bulky bags sometimes blocked classroom aisles during instruction.
The book bags are necessary, students said, because lockers at the high school in Barco are too small and often inaccessible during the school day.
A new high school - twice the size of the current one - is being built next door and is scheduled to open in the fall of 1996. It will include full-length lockers for each student.
Currituck High School students had circulated a petition at the end of the school year requesting county schools officials abandon the new bag policy, announced in last year's student handbook. About 360 students and parents signed the form. The student body numbers just over 700.
The measure, according to the petitioners, violated students' right to privacy and could cause embarrassment when items like feminine hygiene products and undergarments are exposed.
Students also worried about theft with wallets and other valuables clearly visible.
Wardle said earlier that he and department heads who created the policy were thinking only of students' personal safety when the rule was made without any student input.
Last year a gun was found in one student's book bag, and bullets were discovered in another. Unlike lockers, which are public property, book bags cannot be searched without a good reason. by CNB