Some N.J. schools are mandating clear backpacks, one of many antiviolence approaches used nationwide

Beginning this year, a North Jersey school district will require all students to use clear backpacks as a way to keep banned items out of schools.

The move by the South River School system in Middlesex County mirrors a national trend to implement precautionary safety measures, including “bleed control” bills and threat assessment teams, following the May massacre of 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

The Dallas Independent School District adopted the new policy for its middle and high school students, joining a handful of other Texas districts with similar restrictions. Like South River, Dallas will provide clear backpacks to students for free.

But not everyone, including some students and parents, agrees the new backpack policy is a good idea. Some experts believe the clear-bag requirement violates students’ privacy and will do little to combat school violence.

“If we want to deal with our drug or gun problem in America, this is not the best way to deal with it,” Margaret Betz, an assistant philosophy professor at Rutgers University-Camden, said Thursday. “I don’t think this is a justified reason.”

A spokesperson for the New Jersey School Boards Association said a few districts have also recently adopted a clear-bag policy, although it is not common among the state’s districts. But with the first day of school just weeks away, school officials and state leaders have focused heavily on ways to better ensure student and staff safety.

Sens. Joseph Vitale (D., Middlesex) and Teresa Ruiz (D., Essex) last week introduced a bill to require New Jersey high schools to teach students how to stop traumatic bleeding. And State Assemblyman William Moen (D., Camden) is a cosponsor of a new law that will require threat assessment teams for all New Jersey schools.

Camden School Superintendent Katrina McCombs said the district has no plans to mandate mesh or clear bags, but it will still require security screenings and ID badges for students and staff at its middle and high schools.

“Our top priority is the safety and well-being of our students and staff,” she said in a statement.

The Philadelphia School District scans students’ backpacks at its high schools but is not considering mandating transparent bags, said spokesperson Christina Clark. Visitors must pass through a metal detector and their bags must be scanned, too, she said.

Rather than mandate transparent bookbags, the Pennsauken school district will have metal detectors for the first time this year at its two high schools, said Superintendent Ronnie Tarchichi. The district is hoping to crack down on students sneaking in drugs and alcohol, he said.

“You can bring stuff in a backpack; it’s going to be searched,” Tarchichi said. “Security has to be beefed up in schools.”

Since 2019, South River high school students were the only ones in the district restricted to use clear backpacks. In a letter to parents last month, South River School Superintendent Sylvia Zircher said the district would expand the policy for all students as an “extra measure” to keep prohibited items out of school.

The transparent bags will help school personnel determine if students are bringing any contraband or weapons in the building, school officials say.

Zircher said the district would allow students to carry small handbags for personal items, such as feminine hygiene products. Betz, the Rutgers professor, said she was concerned about younger students who may have typically carried personal comfort items like a cherished stuffed animal in their bag, and now wouldn’t feel comfortable doing so.

» READ MORE: How to talk to children about the mass shooting in Texas

Moen said the state’s new threat assessment team requirement will also help identify and evaluate students who may pose a risk.

“It’s a sad reality that this law must be implemented,” Moen said. “This law can save lives by identifying and diverting crises in our schools.”

Moen touted the law, which was fast-tracked and signed by Gov. Phil Murphy earlier this month, during a visit Wednesday at Woodbury High School. Ryan Alcott, a school resource officer, came up with the idea that would create a task force to prevent targeted violence in schools.

Alcott, a nine-year law enforcement officer, said he was inspired after attending an FBI training. The goal of threat assessment, he said, is to focus on prevention, rather than other approaches such as active-shooter training.

“If we see these behaviors, we have to act,” Alcott said. “Not to do that would be negligent.”

Woodbury Education Association president Colleen DiRenzo said the school environment has changed since she began teaching 20 years ago.

“We didn’t have lockdown drills,” said DiRenzo, an eighth-grade literacy teacher. “You didn’t have to worry about that.”

Teachers could be required to do more under a bill that would make teaching “bleed control” part of the mandatory health curriculum in high schools, a measure Vitale helped introduce because of the mass shootings. Students could learn things like how to apply pressure and use tourniquets.