Keeping schools safe through period-monitoring

As a security measure, a school in upstate New York, has banned students from carrying bags (backpacks, purses anything). Unless you’re a menstruating girl, that is. Need some clarification? So did I.

A student at Tri-Valley High School was called out of class by a security guard during a school sweep last week to make sure no kids had backpacks or other banned bags.
Samantha Martin, 14, had a small purse with her that day.
That’s why the security guard, ex-Monticello cop Mike Bunce, asked her The Question.
She says he told her she couldn’t have a purse unless she had her period. Then he asked, “Do you have your period?”
Samantha was mortified.

Apparently, there was a school rumor (not an actual rule) that girls could only carry small bags or purses if they had their periods. So security guards starting pulling girls out of classes, or questioning them in the hallways, about whether they were menstruating or not. Real appropriate.
What’s heartening, though, is that the students aren’t taking this crap without a fight.

Girls have worn tampons on their clothes in protest, and purses made out of tampon boxes. Some boys wore maxi-pads stuck to their shirts in support.
After hearing that someone might have been suspended for the protest, freshman Hannah Lindquist, 14, went to talk to {Principal Robert] Worden. She wore her protest necklace, an OB tampon box on a piece of yarn. She said Worden confiscated it, talked to her about the code of conduct and the backpack rule — and told her she was now “part of the problem.”

Yeah, girls who don’t want creepy security guards knowing about their cycles are huge problems. Soon, they’ll expect things like basic respect and privacy rights!
h/t to Shannon.

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