I could feel the eyes of passing students staring as I fumbled with the lock on my new school locker. I was probably the only one they had seen this year using one. My patience went thin as I tried to remember how to work the dial, an action that had been long lost in my memory. Students with backpacks hustled by. After I put away my athletic bag, I tried to shut the door as quietly as possible to not attract unnecessary attention.
This seemingly normal part of a high schooler’s day was foreign to me, a complete switch from how I had normally transported my school supplies. I was only a day into my trial run of using West Ottawa’s lockers, which sit completely unused by students, and the inconvenience of it was already suffocating.
Lockers were a norm for many generations in the American past, a pivotal part of the school hallways. In many portrayals of the high school experience on television, locker usage is shown. In countless television series and movies like Stranger Things, High School Musical, or Saved by the Bell they are depicted as a focal point in the teens’ high school experience. They are often shown as a place for students to socialize with friends, stash their textbooks, or leave notes. In West Ottawa High School, they have become encroachments on students and faculty walking to class.
Lockers were used at West Ottawa until over a decade ago, when the use gradually stopped. Shannon Bowker, a long-time secretary at West Ottawa said, “I had a son that was here from 2013 – 2017 and he never used a locker.” Lockers stopped being assigned in the 2018-2019 school year, due to the decrease in use, and since then they have become standing artifacts in our hallways. Students can’t even get the use of a locker unless they request one from a secretary. The lockers were expensive to install, as a locker nowadays costs around 200 dollars.
The high school campus holds two buildings that students transfer between every day, and only 4-9 minutes of passing time makes it difficult to travel between lockers. Sr. Helen Sachs said, “There isn’t enough time to go between classes and to and from lockers during school.”
When new students move from middle school to high school, many are enthusiastic about the prospect of not having to use lockers anymore. Soph. Lyla Dowling said, “I was very excited to not have to use them anymore, It just seemed better to not have to go back and forth to my locker all the time.” Young students already felt the inconvenience of lockers at the middle school level, and the larger high school makes them more inconvenient. Also, the older students are not using them, so it seems embarrassing to use one at all.
Locker use may now in part be unnecessary due to the decrease in textbooks and the implementation of Chromebooks as the main learning tool for the school. Technology as a tool has increased significantly in this decade, making the need for physical textbooks obsolete. Chromebooks take up less space, are less heavy, and are less difficult to tote around in backpacks. This contrasts the pounds of books that our school system used to assign. Most of the work assigned to students for their six-hour schedule can be found on Google Classroom. It makes lockers seem much more unnecessary for students.
Many schools around West Michigan have started getting rid of lockers or repurposing them. It all depends on the school system. Grand Haven Public Schools still has full use of their lockers, as it is required by the school for students to use them. Grand Haven Soph. Niel Lavigne said, “It bothers me that we can’t use backpacks.” Saugatuck’s school system has a similar policy. On the flip side, Rockford, Holland, and Forest Hills Northern, no longer use lockers. Jr. Jenna Crowell from Rockford said, “We can use them if we want to.” Whether it is enforced or not, there is an obvious decline in the use of lockers.
Some schools around the nation have elected to rip out their lockers, but this would be extremely expensive. Principal Kristine Jernigan said, “If/when we do remove the lockers it will be quite expensive. Think – refinishing walls, recarpeting, labor or removal, etc.” Also, West Ottawa has several other facilities in much more urgent need of repair, such as the middle school. With new bonds being passed to revamp these spaces, the High School hallways are near the bottom of the list. It makes much more sense to find a way to use our lockers.
There are several ways lockers could become an asset to our students. Many athletes at WO carry around multiple backpacks for their sport, or leave their athletic bags in teachers’ classrooms. So why not give these students use of the otherwise barren lockers? Having the locker space for athletes could help to lighten the load of gear that they have to tote around every day. Sr. and cross country runner Emma Gunnett said, “I could see athletes who can’t drive benefiting from the use of lockers for their athletic gear.”
Also, during the unpredictable seasonal weather, many students can be seen carrying around thick winter coats and umbrellas. Since students walk between buildings in all types of weather, gear is essential to keep them warm and dry. However, with not much space to put this gear, it doesn’t make the idea of carrying it around all day very enticing. So, students are left feeling cold and miserable, with many having to walk multiple times per day in snow, sleet, and rain.
Over the course of four days, I tried to use a locker in the South Building, but the way that my classes aligned made it virtually impossible. There wasn’t enough time to go to a locker and walk the distances needed in the passing times our school provides. It makes it easy to see why students grew tired of using them. Due to this, I switched to solely using it for an athletic bag, and this made traveling between buildings and going to practice after school much more convenient.
While locker use of the past and the era of lockers may be coming to a close, there can still be value found in this space. Student athletes, students of other extracurricular activities and those who want to bring warm winter gear could be assigned one or even two lockers. Passing times might need to be lengthened for students traveling between buildings, lockers might not be used by everyone, but at least they would no longer be embarrassing.
