Empty Locker= Full Backpack

School security is a heavy burden. More so when you’re carrying it on your back.

The Pasadena Unified School District decided years ago to eliminate lockers because of fears that they could become a hiding place for weapons and drugs.

As a result, students like sixth-grader Brandon Schmiedeberg shuffle from class to class at Wilson Middle School toiling under the strain of backpacks stuffed with a locker’s worth of binders, folders, notebooks, dictionaries, thesauruses and textbooks.

Parents are now asking the Pasadena school officials to rethink the locker ban.

“It’s too much for 10- or 12-year-olds,” said Brandon’s mother, Katherine Schmiedeberg.

She weighed her son’s pack after he complained of back and arm pains and was disturbed to find that 110-pound Brandon was shouldering 25 pounds. That’s equal to nearly 23% of his body weight, far more than the 10% limit recommended by health experts.

Besides potential health problems, parents say eliminating lockers does not preclude students from hiding contraband in their backpacks.

Pasadena school police have confiscated weapons from students and responded to assaults on or near school campuses even after the locker ban, officials said.

Voters in the Pasadena district approved a $40-million bond issue earlier this month, and school board members say they will consider using some of the money to solve the locker dilemma. “Obviously, we have to come up with something,” said school board President Lisa Fowler.

One parent said he has a solution: see-through lockers.

Peter Soelter, a father of two, has designed locker doors made of plexiglass--a clear, shatter-proof material.

“Everybody [in the school] has a desk or an office or a place to put things, except for the students,” he said. “I just find it amazing that we tolerate it as a society.”

He spent $600 to install 22 see-through locker doors at Wilson Middle School as an experiment. Now, Soelter is trying to raise money to put in more.

It is not a perfect solution, said board member Fowler, because students “shouldn’t have to feel that everything in their life is exposed.”

Meantime, more than 500 empty lockers line Wilson’s hallways--an increasingly common sight at schools across the country.

But now, parents and students are demanding a place to store school materials.

Their concerns are echoed by members of the medical community.

“I’ve seen more kids coming in here with problems putting their backs out carrying these heavier loads,” said Donald Fluegel, a Los Angeles chiropractor.

Fluegel said students carrying heavy packs could develop muscle spasms and back pains, as well as bad posture, curvature of the spine and early symptoms of arthritis.

Cindy Loesch has twin daughters in the sixth grade who each weigh 65 pounds. Their backpacks weigh up to 30 pounds. Loesch said she wants the lockers returned to use.

“I had a locker available when I started junior high school,” Loesch said. “I really don’t see why they can’t make that available. Who’s to say they still wouldn’t hide a weapon or drugs in a backpack?”

Wilson school Principal Rich Boccia agreed. “Kids are getting heavier, more expensive books,” he said. “They’re [carrying] 30, 40 pounds and the kids are less than 100 pounds. We need to look at what we’re doing for these kids.”

And what do the kids think?

Lakeshia Banks, 13, waits for the school bus at the end of the school day, her pack weighed down with homework and books. “My back is hurting right now,” the seventh-grader said. “We need lockers.”

Parents have come up with some enterprising, albeit temporary, solutions. Loesch bought each of her daughters a backpack with wheels on the bottom.

“Unfortunately,” Loesch said, “the wheels already seem to be breaking.”

Other students cart their books around in travel luggage equipped with wheels and a handle.

The end of lockers has even drawn the attention of academics. Laurie Rubenstein, a physical therapist at USC, is studying the impact of heavy backpacks on the bodies of schoolchildren.

Children carrying backpacks--even ones weighing less than 10% of their body weight--are complaining of headaches, backaches and numbness in their arms, she has found.

“Adults have limits as far as how much they’re allowed to carry,” Rubenstein said, noting postal workers cannot carry more than 35 pounds. “But children don’t.”