PRINCETON — Like the women who carry them, today's purses come in all shapes and sizes, shades and styles. But, at Princeton Middle School, all handbags are banned from class.

In a new policy discussed last year and unveiled just before classes resumed Aug. 24, the school declared that purses must be placed inside lockers for the duration of the school day, along with backpacks and gym bags.

The rule Principal Danny Buckner said is “all about safety” soon set off a lengthy online conversation among alleged parents, students and Princeton community members on the website Topix.com and prompted the resignation of one teacher with an eighth-grade daughter.

Dianna Putorek told the Times this week that she was the only teacher to vote against the proposed policy that had already been printed in the student handbook when the school's educators gathered for a Faculty Senate meeting on Aug. 20.

“I was the only vote against it in the entire school,” Putorek said. “I was the only vote for girls, in my opinion.”

On the books, the no-purse policy ensures that “contraband” won't enter classrooms inside a clutch or tote. Buckner cited items such as tobacco, cigarette lighters and pocket knives that have been problems in the past, but Putorek speculated that its real aim is to get cell phones easily secreted inside purses out of the classroom.

The gadgets everybody has these days are indeed a problem, Putorek agreed, as students divert attention from reading, writing and arithmetic to texting, talking and surfing the web.

The former teacher and mother said her problem with the policy hinges on its infringement on the “private needs” of teen girls often embarrassed about their changing bodies, menstrual cycles and the personal hygiene products necessary to cope with both.

Putorek's interpretation of the policy would require that girls who need to go to the restroom and to retrieve a personal item from their purses would be required to ask permission to go to the bathroom and to visit their lockers.

“The privacy issue comes in when the girl goes to her locker and gets her pocketbook, goes to the restroom and then has to take her pocketbook back to her locker,” she said. “Since students are not allowed to be in their locker in undesignated times at Princeton Middle School, teachers have the right, and some would say the responsibility, to ask that student what she's doing in her locker … What's that girl going to say? I'm getting my pad? When I was 12, I would have died if this policy was in place. It's intimidating. It's humiliating at this age.”

Buckner disagreed, saying that the new policy actually offers more privacy for young women, and he said reports that girls must get special permission to stop by their lockers on the way to the restroom is “misinformation.”  In fact, he said the 2010 rule is an improvement over some teachers' requirements last year that girls drop off their purses at a designated box, tray or cart in the classroom when they entered.

Then, if they needed to pick up their purses before going to the restroom, they selected them from the class's stash, in sight of classmates.

“With the new policy, the teachers felt that it would be more private for them to just ask to go to the restroom and just stop by their locker on the way,” he said, emphasizing that girls do not need to get an additional hall pass to retrieve a personal item from their purses en route to a restroom. “All they have to do is just ask to go to the restroom — no questions asked.”

In addition, the new plan averts boys' complaints that they were being discriminated against when they attempted to bring athletic or gym bags to class.  The principal said they argued last year that it wasn't fair for them if girls were allowed to carry purses while they were required to leave all bags in a locker.

“This way, we felt like we were addressing everybody's needs and still being more discreet,” Buckner said.

Online, a discussion on the policy continued to be one of Princeton's hottest threads on Topix.com. As of early Thursday morning, it had garnered more than 170 responses from people who were adamantly for and against the rule, but so far, Buckner said the Princeton Middle School students have accepted the policy in stride.

“So far, they have accepted it readily,” he said.

— Contact Tammie Toler at ttoler@ptonline.net.