One thing that goes unnoticed as students walk by them every day are the lockers. The green and tan metal boxes sit in our school, taking up pointless space in our hallways.
The idea of lockers is good. They are storage units for school supplies, which can lessen the load for students during the day. The problem is that no students want or use the lockers. The lockers are out of the way, inconvenient to use when everything can just stay in the backpack, and it becomes just another code to remember.
Between classes, there are five minutes to make it from one class to another. Some students have to take a long trench to their class, want to chat with friends, or fill up water bottles. There is not enough time to add a locker run in the middle of all of that.
Also, the lockers are out of the way from the classes. I know my peers, and I do not want to take time out of my busy day to get things from my locker that I could just keep in my backpack with me at all times. Many students struggle with tardies and as the punishments become more severe, the last thing students want is to be late to class because they had to run across the school to get their books. I also have homework most nights and need to take my school supplies and homework home with me every night. This means I would need to load and unload everything from my backpack to my locker every day. I would rather not have the lockers and keep my supplies in my backpack.
Not only are the lockers useless when backpacks can do the same job without the extra trips around the school, the lockers are also just a pain to have. Not only do they require students to take extra time to go to the lockers, but they involve just another code to remember. Many students are swamped with a hundred things from every class, and the last thing they want to do is remember another bit of information. This would cause more problems in the school when students forget their codes and are left going to classes with their supplies stuck in lockers until a staff member can help them. This problem is minor to some, but to other students, like incoming freshmen, this task can be a real struggle as they learn how to navigate the school and inevitably get lost or forget items in their locker. It would be easier and better for the school as a whole if there were no more lockers.
The lockers take up so much space. If they were taken out, something would have to take their place. This would be a big project and cost a lot of money, but I do not think any students or staff would miss the lockers. There could be new classrooms built where the lockers are which could create new classes or thin certain classes out to get a better ratio of teacher to students in the classes. There could be a bookstore in one of the areas. This could be a place that sells notebooks, pencils and binders which save students a trip to the store and earn some money for the school. Another idea is a sitting area that could be put in the area outside of the cafeteria. It could become a place for students to eat, a study area, or for classes to have different environments for a day. I think the area taken up by lockers is wasted and could be put to better use for our school.
In conclusion, there are zero benefits to having hundreds of lockers taking up space in our school.
