Texas schools are sending parents DNA kits to identify their kids’ bodies in emergencies. This is making many parents feel even more anxious.
The state of Texas is sending public school students’ home with DNA kits designed to help their parents identify their children “in case of an emergency.” The three-fold pamphlets allow caregivers to store their children’s DNA and fingerprints at home, which could then be turned over to law enforcement agencies in the event of an “emergency.” According to the legislation mandating the kits be provided to qualifying Texas families, the fingerprint and DNA verification kits were intended to “help locate and return a missing or trafficked child.”
Tracy Walder, a former CIA and FBI agent and current college professor who taught high school history for 16 years, said she was “devastated” when she heard her second-grade daughter would be sent home with a kit.
“You have to understand, I’m a former law enforcement officer,” Walder, who has lived in Texas for 14 years, said. “I worry every single day when I send my kid to school. Now we’re giving parents DNA kits so that when their child is killed with the same weapon of war I had when I was in Afghanistan, parents can use them to identify them?”
