It’s 8:59 a.m. at the iSchool, and students are rushing to arrive to class on time while clinging onto their book bags, jackets and belongings with just one minute till class starts. Some students may have come to school early while others arrive late to class. Luckily, they do not have to be even more late to class while picking out their books from their lockers because the iSchool does not have lockers!

Teachers and students have contrasting ideas about the pros and cons of lockers. Lockers can be used to store students’ personal items. It can help influence a student’s creativity allowing them to decorate them in all sorts of artistic ways. While it also can distract students in between classes, it can cause many problems resulting from someone going in another student’s locker or someone misplacing their items. The pros and cons of having access to lockers at the iSchool list continues to grow.

Math teacher Ms. LaPlante doesn’t believe that lockers are at a high priority in this high school. “Lockers would create a situation where more kids are not prepared for class.” She continued to say, “students might use the excuse ‘I’m just going to get something from my locker that’s what I’m doing here’ to walk around the hallways.” Many teachers like Ms. LaPlante feel like lockers would just contribute to the number of students not paying attention or not participating in class.  Ms. LaPlante, who doesn’t use textbooks like all teachers in the iSchool, feels like getting lockers isn’t a high priority as other things.

Paraprofessional Mr. Laurro believes that lockers would be a nice thing to have at the school, but there are many problems to having it. He states, “ There might have to be a longer period in between classes so that students could get things from their lockers if they needed to.” He continues on to say, “Books aren’t a huge problem so there isn’t a high demand for lockers here.”

Many students like Goshuami Valoy Tineo, a sophomore, agrees that on some days, they’re required to carry an excessive amount of school supplies such as folders, notebooks, binders, etc. It’s especially difficult when the classes that require the most school supplies are all put together in one day because students can notice a weight difference in their book bags.

When asked how she manages the heavy weight of her supplies, Goshuami stated that she “does not have much control of it because I have to take whatever supplies that are needed for class even though I don’t want to.”

However, on some days, Goshuami does not need to deal with this issue: “I look at my schedule and see what I have that day and see what stuff I have to take.” Yet, she still completely agrees that the use of lockers can be beneficial for her because “sometimes a class might require you to make a big project and you might need to take it home and bring it back but with lockers you can just leave them there.”

Jayvin Espinal, a sophomore, agrees that lockers would be a great advantage because according to him, “you don’t want to walk around carrying two pounds of education.” Even though he agrees with the idea of implementing lockers, he stated, “Especially here at the iSchool, you don’t use a lot of notebooks or folders. Usually things are online or on a Google Doc.”

On the contrary, Jennifer Rendon, another current sophomore, does not believe lockers would be beneficial for her because she usually gets to school late, which would not allow her to have enough time to pick out any folders or notebooks. In addition, she said, “It usually takes me a good three minutes because the hallways are always so crowded.” As a result, she would not have enough time in between classes to put away or get her supplies.

At the end of the day, lockers have many pros and cons to using them at the iSchool. But overall, lockers could help students with carrying items while it can also distract them from classwork.