State of Texas to send students home with DNA kits

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Optional student DNA testing kits designed to help parents identify their children “in case of emergency” are being sent home with students in Texas. 

The measure comes after the Texas state legislature passed Bill No. 2158, a law that requires TEA to “provide identification kits to school districts and open-enrollment charter schools for distribution to the parent or legal custodian of certain students.” The law followed a shooting inside Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas that killed eight students and two teachers. 

Ink-free fingerprint and DNA identification kits will be provided by the Texas public school system to all K-6 students who are eligible. Parents are not required to utilize the kits. 

The kit includes a three-fold pamphlet that allows parents and caregivers to store their children’s DNA and fingerprints at home along with storing medical information. If something bad happens, these prints could be turned over to local, state, or federal law enforcement. According to the legislation, these kits were intended to “help locate and return a missing or trafficked child”. 

Some parents and caregivers are apprehensive about the measure, with some agreeing that it doesn’t send a good message. Parents also have also expressed concerns about privacy.

 Families of students are still alert after the second deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history left 19 students and two teachers dead in Uvalde, Texas. Many children who were shot at Robb Elementary were hard to identify due to the severity of their injuries – some family members provided DNA swabs in order to identify remains. 

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