Students from a Toronto-area high school are voicing their concerns about a new rule aimed at reducing clutter by banning backpacks in classrooms.

An online petition created by a student at Cardinal Leger Secondary School in Brampton, Ont., this week, calls for the school board to direct the school to revoke the ban.

“As a grade 12 student in the DPCDSB [Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board], I believe that every student should have the right to carry a backpack around with them at school in order to have the best learning experience possible. Bring back our backpacks!” petition creator Chloe Cabral wrote.

The petition which had nearly 600 signatures by midday Tuesday, states that students are dropping their belongings, bumping into each other and arriving late to class because of frequent trips to their lockers for forgotten items.

“Female students are at a disadvantage due to feminine hygiene because a trip to the washroom now takes twice as long without having personal items on hand,” Cabral wrote on the petition she intends to send to the school board once the target number of signatures is reached.

A number of commenters posted their reasons for supporting the petition, including several students who complained of their challenge hauling belongings between classes.

“It is an incredible struggle to constantly carry my heavy textbooks, binders, AND A LAPTOP in my arms,” Monika Peterkova wrote. “I see people dropping their belongings left and right, and it will be a matter of time before I drop everything as well.”

One student, Mikhala St. James, told CTV Toronto that she was sent to the principal’s office when she flouted the new rule and brought her backpack to class anyway.

“That’s not fair for me because I looked at my schedule and my locker is upstairs but all my classes are downstairs beside each other and I didn’t really want to do the extra steps to go up to my locker,” she explained.

The Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board maintains that students should only bring the necessary items to class, so that classrooms don’t become overcrowded.

“The issue was clutter in the classrooms,” Bruce Campbell, the general manager of communications and community relations for the board told CTVNews.ca on Tuesday. “Kids were bringing these massive backpacks into class and it was creating excessive clutter. They were becoming an impediment for passage.”

Only a handful of the 26 high schools that the DPCDSB oversees have implemented the rule, according to Campbell, including a few of that have banned backpacks from classrooms for years, without any complaints.

“In fact, it’s gotten positive feedback from students and parents that there’s no longer all this stuff hanging in the classrooms,” Campbell said.

Health and safety hazard

Another Grade 10 student, Megan Beere, also said she’s “frequently” late for class because her locker is located on the first floor of the school and most of her classes are on the second floor.

The 15-year-old student has another serious concern with the ban. She said she is having difficulty carrying all of her medications with her on top of her textbooks and other equipment.

“I’m also not allowed to have my backpack, which is difficult for me because I have to carry around my EpiPen, my inhalers, my different medication that I need to take around,” Beere told CTVNews.ca.

Beere has an allergy to tree nuts and peanuts and said she’s required to make extra trips to her locker if she thinks she may be exposed to those allergens, such as in her history class where students are allowed to eat.

Bringing a purse or fanny pack are also not options, according to Beere, because they break the school’s mandatory uniform code. When she told her teachers about the difficulty, Beere said she was told to transport her medications in her pencil case or her pockets, which she said is unhygienic and doesn’t fit.

The school board, however, said that students with extenuating circumstances or needs will be allowed to bring in a bag of some type into the classroom.

“If somebody has a unique need or needs to bring medication or whatever to class then they’re certainly permitted to do that,” Campbell said. “They should have the discussion with the school admin team, the principal and vice-principal.”

Campbell said Beere should have a conversation with the school’s principal and vice-principal to address her specific situation.

Beere said she just hopes the petition will prompt her school to revise a policy she says is unsafe because it prevents students from carrying their medication with them at all times, increases the likelihood of collisions in the hallways as students rush between classes and inhibits them from holding the handrail on stairs because their arms are full.

“It’s not even just inconvenient anymore. It’s a health and safety hazard,” she said.

The school board said it’s strictly the school’s decision to modify or revoke the backpack rule. Campbell said he wasn’t aware of any plans by Cardinal Leger Secondary School to implement any changes to the policy.

With files from CTV Toronto