Texas students taking DNA, fingerprint kits home to identify them in case of emergency
'When I receive them we're going to complete the kit and store it in the cabinet and pray to God nothing happens,' parent says
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Texas public school students in grades kindergarten through eighth will be sent home with child identification kits in the coming weeks, according to reports.
The kits allow parents to take, store and control their child’s fingerprints/DNA in their own home, the National Child Identification Program website says.
Some parents are uneasy about the requirement following the Uvalde mass shooting earlier this year, but the state legislature passed a law requiring all school districts and open-enrollment charter schools to provide the kits to parents in 2021.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"It was almost like the state just throwing their hands up and saying, 'We can't do anything about the guns. We're not going to change any of the laws. So, therefore, the next best thing is to make sure that we can identify your K through eighth grader if they are killed in any type of school incident,'" Clear Creek Independent School District parent Anthony Crutch told ABC13. "When I receive them we're going to complete the kit and store it in the cabinet and pray to God nothing happens."
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A look at the instructions to be sent home with Texas students to collect DNA, fingerprints. (National Child Identification Program)
"The Child ID kits are a voluntary identification card intended to be kept by guardians who can give them to law enforcement in order to potentially help find missing or trafficked children," ABC13 states.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Distribution by the state is going through the Texas Education Agency. Close to 4 million students are expected to take the kits home.
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Privacy barriers and bike racks maintain a perimiter at a memorial outside Robb Elementary School, after a video was released showing the May shooting inside the school in Uvalde, Texas, U.S., July 13, 2022. (REUTERS/Kaylee Greenlee Beal)
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}However, according to the National Child Identification Program website, nearly the same number of students received the ID kits across the Lone Star State in the fall of 2000, and they were also distributed in 2006-07.