Have your students thought about hanging their jackets on the back of their chairs? Yes, they have to take them from class to class - but it works. Or hang them in their locker?

As for umbrellas - use an umbrellas that collapses down. Either re-insert into it's nylon "case" or bring a plastic bag (such as one from the morning newspaper) and then stuff into backpack.

Honestly - I think it is more of a fashion statement these days. No kid wants to look like a model from the LL Bean or REI catalog with rain/storm gear. Not cool. Hoodie sweatshirts is the current school uniform/trend.

Parent- your student is correct, there is nowhere to hang wet items at school except their locker (middle school) or chair back (many high school kids don't get lockers). A plastic bag would help, especially in the locker to keep the rest of the locker contents dry.

At Gunn most (all?) of the kids don't have lockers. They carry everything from class to class.

I am surprised to hear that most Gunn students don't have lockers! That is not healthy for a teenager to carry around a typical high school load of books. The lack of administrative concern for the teens' well-being is astonishing.

Many (most?) of the classes give the kids a copy of the textbook for home. My kids generally don't haul textbooks back and forth and their backpacks seem manageable to me.

Here's an article from 1999 PA Online about lockers - apparently they came out some time in the 1980s.

Web Link

Middle school kids have a set of textbooks for home and for school. Not all the high schools classes (Spanish is one example) have enough texts for the kids to bring one home.

The size of our high schools makes it impractical to use a locker too often. Beginning and end of day and lunch.

My son has a locker at Paly but he only uses it for one textbook. The kids all lug around their backpacks these days, unlike when I attended Paly and we all used our lockers after each class (how'd we make it to class on time?). But with Paly's block schedule, the backpacks are not as heavy as on Mondays (7 periods).

Jordan has lockers which are mandatory usage. Backpacks are not allowed in classrooms. This rule began about 4 years ago because no one was using their lockers and their backpacks were heavy.