ENROLLED
2018 Regular Session
HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOL UTION NO. 79
BY REPRESENTATIVE AMEDEE
A CONCURRENT RESOL UTION
To urge and request each public school governing authority to take certain actions relative
to helping students avoid injury due to the use of heavy backpacks.
WHEREAS, overloaded school backpacks are causing an increasing problem of back
pain and spinal strain in students in elementary and secondary schools across the nation; and
WHEREAS, because spinal ligaments and muscles are not fully developed until after
sixteen years of age, overweight backpacks are a source of repeated low-level stress that may
result in chronic neck, shoulder, or back pain in children; and
WHEREAS, reviews of data have revealed more than seven thousand emergency
room visits and more than twenty-eight thousand doctor's office visits per year by children
for backpack-related injuries; and
WHEREAS, studies of the effects on children of carrying heavy backpacks have
shown that heavy loads carried on the back have the potential to compress intervertebral disc
height and damage the soft tissues of the shoulder causing microstructural damage to the
nerves; and
WHEREAS, students' textbooks are much heavier now than many years ago, and in
addition to textbooks, students often carry computers, cell phones, water bottles, running
shoes, band instruments, and other equipment; and
WHEREAS, more than ninety percent of children carry a school backpack, which
studies have found can weigh as much as twenty-five percent of the child's body weight; and
WHEREAS, backpacks are often not worn correctly and are frequently slung over
one shoulder or allowed to hang significantly below the waistline, increasing the weight on
Page 1 of 3 HCR NO. 79 ENROLLED
the shoulders and causing the child to lean forward when walking or standing to compensate
for the weight; and
WHEREAS, rolling backpacks remove the weight from a child's back but are
sometimes not allowed in schools due to a concern over being a trip hazard in the hallways
or because of the difficulty of carrying them up and down stairways.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby
urge and request each public school governing authority to take the following actions to help
students avoid injury due to the use of heavy backpacks:
(1) Discourage students from carrying a backpack that weighs more than ten percent
of the student's body weight.
(2) Encourage the use of ergonomic backpacks with individualized compartments
to efficiently hold books and equipment.
(3) Encourage students to wear both shoulder straps and not sling a backpack over
one shoulder.
(4) Encourage the use of wide, padded, adjustable backpack straps that fit the
student's body.
(5) Encourage students to leave the heaviest books at school and urge teachers to
give handouts or workbooks that can be used for homework assignments.
(6) Encourage schools to make electronic versions of textbooks available as federal
and state funding for that purpose becomes available.
(7) Offer students integrated education about backpacks by using a hanging scale
in the classroom to allow students to weigh their backpacks and enter the weight into a graph
that would track the weights and use the data to determine whether a student's backpack is
too heavy and provide information about ways to lighten the weight of a backpack.
(8) Encourage school administrators to work with parent-teacher organizations to
assess the extent to which their students use overweight backpacks and to promote
innovative homework strategies that lessen the need for students to take school materials and
books from school to home each day.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to the
executive director of the Louisiana School Boards Association, who shall disseminate a copy
Page 2 of 3 HCR NO. 79 ENROLLED
to each city, parish, or other local public school board, and to the state superintendent of
education, who shall disseminate a copy to the governing authority of each charter school.
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
Page 3 of 3