Lets lock up this issue: Should lockers be allowed next year?

The school year is nearly over and within about a month and a half, students will be walking out the doors for summer vacation. That leaves students and staff thinking about the next school year and the changes that can be made. One big thing that I don’t understand, along with many students, is why can’t we use our lockers? Rocky has an abundance of lockers that are available for use and yet we don’t take advantage of them. This article will go over the reason we haven’t been able to use lockers; the benefits lockers could give students; the downside of using lockers; and student’s opinions.

Why haven’t we been able to use lockers?

School lockers have been manufactured all the way back in 1920, over 100 years ago. School lockers help students store their things and keep their belongings organized for classes. It’s a great way for students to keep track of their things and overall be more organized throughout the school day. “The locker market total being worth $1.2 trillion in 2019 and expected to be $1.5 trillion by 2024″ (nuesmart.com). If the locker market is worth this much, then why haven’t students at Rocky been able to use their lockers? It seems like it would help students in their day-to-day school lives and make keeping their assignments and worksheets for classes much more convenient. Since the Coronavirus outbreak in 2020 it seems like we haven’t been able to use our lockers since then. This has some truth to it. According to altpress.com, “Other reasonings for the lack of locker use include the rise of digital textbooks and the plain reality that most of the high school experience is changing,” (altpress.com). The Covid-19 outbreak has affected doing paper assignments and worksheets to most of it happening online. But should this really affect students’ ability to use lockers to the extent where they don’t use them at all? Students still have paper assignments even if it’s not as much as it was a couple years ago.

The benefits lockers could give students

There are multiple benefits of students being able to use lockers. Students get the benefit of organizing all their belongings for classes in one space. Lockers not only help students be organized, but for students who have extra curriculars after school, they have a place to put the stuff they need for after school. An example of this could be students who do track can put their water bottles and track bags in their locker, so they don’t need to run to their car, or to home to get their stuff. It makes it much more convenient for the students. Lily Moody, a sophomore, says “Lockers could be helpful for sports supplies and clothes and extra school supplies.” That’s a good point because sometimes there’s simply not enough room in someone’s backpack to carry all their belongings. Olivia Lanzara, a sophomore, says “They could be helpful to students because some kids just don’t have enough space in their backpacks to carry all their stuff. Athletes don’t have enough room for equipment and a lot of kids feel like they have to keep stuff in their cars which is really out of the way.”

The downsides

Some downsides of locker usage in school is the chance that hallways will become much more crowded. If everyone must run around the halls to get to their locker, then the hallways would become chaotic. Passing periods are only 5 minutes, and with lockers many students would be late from getting supplies from the lockers. Also, many students carry backpacks will all their supplies in it already. Some think it’s completely pointless to have lockers in school because of backpacks, and a good portion of schoolwork being online.

Student opinions:

Emma, a junior, at Rocky Mountain gives her opinion of locker use by saying, “Personally, I don’t use lockers. I like to be able to carry my backpack around with me so I always have everything for class. Although I’m not against the idea of lockers. If the schools bring them back I think it would be beneficial for people who have extra bags and other things they might not want to carry around.”

Reece, a junior at Rocky Mountain says, “I don’t think we need lockers one bit, there pointless now for the majority of students….They should be allowed as an option, if students want one they can get one.”

Ian, a sophomore, at Rocky Mountain says, “Sure for those who would rather have it, so they don’t have to carry as much stuff and are more organized.”