School officials at a Texas high school have reversed their earlier decision requiring students to be patted down before graduation after a mother complained about the practice and called it “demeaning.”
Graduates of Coppell High School were originally going to be required to be frisked at their graduation ceremony, reports the Dallas Morning News.
The school’s initial policy said the students would have a pat-down to ensure they were not carrying cell phones or beach balls.
On Wednesday, school officials announced they would forego the pat-down of students.
One mother complained about the practice, but school officials initially defended it.
Vicki Mudrick told the Dallas Morning News she was shocked after her son told her about the mandatory protocol at graduation practice last week.
“I don’t want to say I didn’t believe [her son], but I was shocked,” Mudrick said. “I couldn’t believe that was something they would have to go through with 790 students with the teachers.”
Mudrick termed the practice “demeaning to the students and honestly just kind of creepy.”
“It’s bad enough when it’s a TSA [agent] at the airport, but when the teachers do that before they graduate?”
The school’s director of communications at first defended the policy, indicating it was a procedure for several years. No other area schools had the frisking policy in place.