Thanks! ya'lls comments have helped me to clarify my thoughts :)

Backpacks w/ school books are heavy; I realized that my kids just slung them down on the ground (even if they weren't that heavy). So that's where I put them, in floor-level places w/ an open front.

Hanging them on a hook wouldn't have worked. For one thing, my kids' backpacks would have pulled the hook out of almost any wall. And for another, my kids didn't ant to lift them up and aim for the tiny hook with that little loop (their view of which was blocked by the backpack itself).

I would come up with a chair--not a bench. And put the backpacks on the floor in sort of vertical cubbies (open on the top and front, and maybe dividers between them) and hooks on the wall for the coats.

Or maybe a bench w/ a lid that flips up, and you can drop the backpacks into the cubbies under the bench (cut the front down a bit, so backpacks can come out at a slight angle). Then you can leave the lid up while kids are coming and going, or getting stuff out to do homework.
(my kids kept their schoolbooks & notebooks in the backpack, and only pulled them out when they needed them, and then put them straight back, so they didn't get accidentally left in the house when they took off for school.)

So then you can have the tidiness of a bench, and a place to sit, but the backpacks will be easily accessible when they're in prime use (during homework/travel times).