Whenever I see a movie in a high school setting, one of the most familiar scenes is the numerous friend groups separated by cliques and hanging out by their lockers. Usually, when there are closeups of them, they are highly personalized with their favorite pop culture likes at the time. Each one is a true testament to their individuality and gives a baseline thought of what they are like. Regardless of movies’ unrealistic scenes and normalities of high school, I wish having lockers would be commonplace again across classrooms in the United States.

What potential benefits do lockers bring to a school environment nowadays?

While carrying around large textbooks is more or less a thing of the past–with many teachers either having gone completely digital or having a class set of their required course materials–students still have to carry large notebooks for many of their classes. Access to a locker would allow our student body to lessen the load in their backpacks, which must be held throughout the school day. 

Lessening the load of backpacks is vital for our student body’s well-being. As a previous freshman, I went through the pain of carrying a backpack a third of my body weight daily, wishing there could be some alternative. A year later, I feel sympathy as I witness the same reality: many freshmen carrying backpacks, a third of their body weight and sometimes the same size proportionally. As high school students, we should be more conscious of the poor posture we use to counter the weight of our backpacks, as it can damage our growing development. In fact, According to the Mayo Clinic [1], “Overall, adults and children should not carry more than 15% of their body weight in a backpack. For example, the backpack for a 60-pound child should weigh less than nine pounds.” With the inclusion of lockers in our school environment, our student body could see better posture and development of our bodies from not having to carry as much weight throughout the day.

Lockers can also provide a secure place for students to store valuable belongings. They typically are safer locations than backpacks for preventing theft and providing safety to personal items. For the assurance of both students and staff who help manage lost items, lockers would keep the number of stolen and lost items to a minimum.

Consider the amount of equipment a typical student-athlete must carry for a broader scope. While the locker rooms used for PE give room to store needed equipment for sports, that luxury is only given to some. The majority will have to carry a second backpack filled with their sports equipment and already heavy first. Lockers could help supplement some of the added weight they would have to take on during the school day.

Finally, I’ve noticed that as students age throughout high school, they start bringing the bare essentials to school instead of lugging all the recommended supplies for class. While lockers may not encourage our entire upperclassmen student body to start getting more materials magically, it can entice them to do so. With more upperclassmen having all the required materials for class, they can feel more motivated to work, allowing for nurturing learning environments. 

Where does this leave us?

While the realities of a continued locker-free environment will prevail in the eyes of school budgeting and necessities versus wants, it is clear that including such spaces would improve students’ quality of life at our high school and those across the country. Specifically, lockers would provide improved storage places for our student body to store their heavy and expensive belongings and sports equipment. Overall, if getting lockers for an “enhanced” learning environment is not a fair argument, how about we be concerned about the bones and joints of our growing student body?