The renewed option of Child ID kits at schools — by their timing, linked closely to last May’s Uvalde mass shooting — is nothing new to Texas, which has offered similar kits to parents for at least two decades.

The timing of the newest round of kits, however, has struck a chord for some parents, who have told various media outlets in recent days that the need for such kits is devastating. For many, it is a reminder of the mass shooting in Uvalde, in which 19 children and two teachers died.

Actor Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camila carried green Converse high-top sneakers with them to Capitol Hill in June as they talked about the anguish of the mass shooting. McConaughey’s wife carried the shoes, with a black heart marked on the toe, as they talked about the way 10-year-old Maite Rodriguez eventually had to be identified by the coroner after the Robb shooting.

“These are the same green Converse on her feet that turned out to be the only clear evidence that could identify her after the shooting,” McConaughey said during a news conference on Capitol Hill, pointing to the shoes held by his wife.

What You Need To Know

  • Parents are alarmed and upset by Child ID kits now being offered on Texas school campuses

  • These kits, available to parents in K-8, are intended to give parents fingerprints and DNA of their children if they go missing

  • Child ID kits have been offered on Texas school campuses, off and on, for over two decades

  • The Child ID project was launched in 1987 by the NFL coaches association as a way to assist in finding missing children

Those are memories hard for many parents to shake. However, the main purpose for the voluntary use of the Child DNA kits — purchased through the nonprofit National Child Identification (I.D.) Program — is to identify children who are kidnapped or missing. As sponsor Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, told her colleagues on the Senate Education Committee during a committee meeting in April, 2021, a child disappears every 40 seconds.

“Every year, greater than 800,000 children go missing,” Campbell told her colleagues as she laid out Senate Bill 2158 on April 15. “That’s roughly one child every 40 seconds…This bill seeks to help locate the missing children.”

That’s a number that’s been quoted as far back as 2004, when then-Gov. Rick Perry was joined by the father of Elizabeth Smart, a child kidnapped out of her bed in her Utah home in 2002. Police rescued her from her captors 10 months later.

The actual number of children who go missing has been the subject of some debate. Politifact, a project of the nonprofit Poynter Institute, notes that the number of missing children often refers to the number of pending cases each year, rather than the number of children abducted in the single year.

The Child ID kits — a simple paper tri-fold pamphlet — is a document created by the parent with the child and kept with the family. If, or when, a child disappears, the document can be shared with law enforcement, be it local, state or federal.

When she introduced the bill, Campbell said it was at the behest of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and supported by the American Football Coaches Foundation. The program, created in 1987, had been supported, off and on, by both Perry and Gov. George W. Bush.

Campbell’s bill, Senate Bill 2158, passed with easy majorities in both House and Senate. It came with a fiscal note of about $5.6 million for the biennium, based on the Texas Education Agency’s estimated cost of $15 per kit. That total, however, is far more than the price quoted on the website of the nonprofit organization that prints the kit and offers discounts for large quantities.

Senate Bill 2158, which went into effect on Sept. 1, 2021, includes a paragraph about the Texas Education Agency creating rules about the disposal of fingerprints and pictures, although Campbell emphasized TEA would keep no biometric information.