After an internal assessment conducted by school administrators over safety, Bellaire implemented a one-bag policy to create a safer learning environment, according to a StudentSquare post from Principal Michael Niggli, beginning on April 1.
The policy limits students to one backpack and requires all approved secondary bags, such as athletic or dance bags, to be stored in lockers. According to Niggli’s post, the policy was based on “important considerations,” including hallway and classroom clutter, better organization and overall school safety.
“It’s all about reducing risk,” Safety Captain and Assistant Principal Al Lloyd said. “When we talk about students coming to campus, we need to make sure they’re bringing what they need to be educated. Most people are bringing notebooks, notepads and books. When we have a person that’s bringing one additional backpack, the question becomes, ‘Why does the student need an additional backpack at an educational facility when we have everything we need here to educate our students?’”
According to Lloyd, the school’s administration investigated why students were bringing more than one bag to school and saw that multiple bags were more often associated with contraband rather than learning.
“We’ve confiscated contraband — other products that were not learning instruments — whether it was selling cakes, candy, vapes, drugs or other paraphernalia that was confiscated,” Lloyd said. “If somebody’s selling you a bad product without a business license or insurance, who would turn to help you? You know that person isn’t going to pay for your medical bills if they give you a cookie or candy that you purchase on a regular basis.”
It is against district policy for students to sell items or make money on campus, according to Lloyd. “Second of all, you bring a criminal element to campus, meaning that if you’re selling things illegally, you’re making money illegally,” Lloyd said. “If there are people who can identify you, then they can involve you in their shakedowns and say, ‘If you make $100, then you owe me $50,’ so all that activity takes place when it can be easily avoided.”
However, Lloyd said that he sees Bellaire shifting toward adopting clear backpacks. The reason behind it, he said, was because of risk.
“You want to look at the risk, the kind of risk we’ve had this year,” Lloyd said. “If you have students bringing contraband in one bag, what will reduce the risk? Are you going to search bags as you come in, or are you going to take the least resistance, and the least resistance would be a clear backpack. If you gave students a choice between searching them or wearing a clear backpack, most students that I’ve talked to said a clear backpack is fine. Ultimately, we need to make sure that all students are being educated, so that’s the primary reason for the one-bag policy.”
For junior Evelyn “Evie” Tan, she was unhappy when she first learned about the new policy.
“The reasons administration gave in the post were illogical, and I couldn’t believe that they were actually trying to mitigate an issue that I didn’t see,” Tan said. “I just think the entire concept of it wasn’t going to help. I thought all of the execution of the policy was bad, including announcing it the day before they were going to start it.”
The first day of the one-bag policy being implemented, Tan said, staff checked her bag.
“The administrators said, ‘See if she has excess snacks,’ which affirmed to me that the reasons they gave in their post weren’t their actual reasons for putting the policy in place,” Tan said. “I think the policy was created to stop snack rings. That’s probably the big overarching reason in a school where you typically have people who are trading snacks around.”
Initially, Tan tried to place all her items such as books and art supplies into one bag, which meant she was carrying a lot of weight on her back with her scoliosis.
“I have scoliosis, so I’m not really trying to carry a ton of weight entirely on my back,” Tan said. “Having an extra bag lets me even out the weight a little bit more and distribute it, so I don’t have to carry it entirely in one place. [Although], I don’t think they considered my voice as a student, because if they had consulted any student, the students would have told them, ‘Hey, I don’t think that’s going to work, and it’s actually going to affect everyone else more than the people who you’re trying to target.’”
Junior Sarah Guillot said she believed the policy didn’t make “any sense,” as she thought that the policy was hurting the wrong people, ones who weren’t selling snacks.
“The people who sell snacks are just going to switch to selling out of their one backpack,” Guillot said. “For me, I just joined water polo and I have to have a bag for that, and sometimes the administrator by the metal detectors is like, ‘Oh, let me see your bag.’ Then, sometimes they’re not. I know every single day one of my friends who has to take another backpack has to get searched, and that takes up a lot of time to go into the school.”
As a student, Guillot said that the one-bag policy made her feel more frustrated because she believes she’s not safer because of it.
“People know how to get past any of the security systems here, so I just feel frustrated,” Guillot said. “Many of my friends have felt the same way, especially the ones in sports, because they’re limited in how many bags they can carry. If your [one] bag is really full, it hurts more because you have that singular bag. It’s definitely limiting people on how much they can bring in.”
Guillot said she doesn’t think the rule will harm or benefit the school.
“I don’t see the benefit if nothing’s really changing besides the rule being annoying,” Guillot said. “It’s just a policy that happened to be implemented. I hope it doesn’t stay in effect next year, since I have a lot of bags.”
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