Lockers or no lockers?

[jasper12]

Ha, where I worked a school locker was probably a stash for guns, knives, drugs, stolen property. No wonder they decided to do away with lockers.

[lkb0714]

We have lockers but with four 80 minute blocks, they do not see much use accept at the beginning of the day and lunch.

Additionally, we have an open locker policy that the kids instituted on their own. All of them always leave their lockers open. They never shut them, let alone lock them. Wallets, iphones, game systems, etc all just left out. Its sort of weird. They like it that way though.

[Mattie]

Without lockers, where do the kids leave their coats in winter? We had school lockers in both NJ and GA. In Florida, our middle school did not, but they provided two sets of books, so one set could be kept at home. My son's high school in FL had lockers, but it was a private school.

[lhpartridge]

Originally Posted by Mattie

Without lockers, where do the kids leave their coats in winter? We had school lockers in both NJ and GA. In Florida, our middle school did not, but they provided two sets of books, so one set could be kept at home. My son's high school in FL had lockers, but it was a private school.

The don't leave their coats. They carry them to each class. Winters here are mild, so many students never really have a coat, preferring hoodies even when the weather is really cold. Our schools close whenever there is snow.

[jasper12]

High school? My kids only wore coats when threatened by me. They wear hoodies.

[maciesmom]

Years ago, our local middle school was remodeled. They removed the lockers to allow better flow in the hallways. I thought it was a nightmare. The kids carried backpacks around all day. All their school supplies, their lunch, their coats (it is often cold here in winter), binders and folders for each of their classes and anything else that might be needed on a given day. They didn't usually have to carry textbooks as one set of books was kept in the classroom and they were issued books to keep at home, but they were supposed to have a book to read oftentimes for English class, which then had to be toted around all day. Still, those backpacks often weighed 20 lbs or more. I was so glad when they moved out of middle school and into high school. With lockers.

[psr13]

Two of my high schools had lockers and two didn't. The ones with lockers were so much better because we didn't have to lug everything around. The two with lockers were also in the area that had a lot of gang violence. The school had combinations to all of the lockers and could search whenever it wanted. Removing lockers wouldn't have stopped weapons from being at school, either, because kids would have just had them in their backpacks. My junior high had lockers that were covered up as we couldn't use them, and we all wished that we could use them. Carrying around all of our books and folders with those lockers sitting there empty was no fun. Shoot, even the teachers wished the school would have let us use them.

[CaliTerp07]

We have lockers in my Virginia middle school. The kids are not allowed to carry backpacks during the day. They enter school, and 7th graders are shepherded into the gym while 8th graders are patrolled in the main entry way (they do their best to keep the grades separate as much as possible). When the bell rings for school to start, the kids have 10 minutes to put their stuff away and grab their supplies for the morning. We're block scheduled, so it's only 2 periods worth of stuff. All backpacks/coats/hats must stay in the lockers all day. It's a security measure (we have a tricky population to work with) as well as a tripping hazard policy. Our classrooms aren't large, and 25 backpacks take up a lot of space. The school is really big on getting up and moving around during lessons, so that helps.

The kids are allowed to go to their lockers again before/after lunch, to pick up their supplies for the afternoon classes. They have another 10 minutes after school to grab their backpacks and trade out their supplies to go home. There is no locker access without teacher supervision at any other point during the day.

[outsidetree]

In my school district all the schools have lockers, even the elementaries. Some of the elementary classrooms don't have lockers and have to keep coats/backpacks in the classroom though. The middle school and new high school have lockers. The lockers have locks already on them. We have access to our lockers whenever we aren't in the classroom and are allowed to carry backpacks around if we want to.