- Flag football mouth guard – check.
- Change of clothes for school – check.
- Track practice clothes – check.
- Extra pair of school shoes – check.
- Deodorant, mascara, brush, etc. – check.
- Water bottle – check.
- Lunch – check.
- School books – check.
- School-issued laptop – check.
- Notebooks, pencils, binders, etc. – check.
- Phone – check.
Now, Vivi was ready to go to school on Monday morning – with arms full of these things and an overflowing backpack that weighed 18 lbs. Yes, strapped to her back was weight equivalent to her little sister (Emersyn tips the scales at ~25).
Leaning forward as she left the minivan that day, I thought, ‘She’ll be fine. Hopefully it all fits in her locker.’
Wait a second – there are NO LOCKERS anymore.
Vivi would be toting all of these necessary materials around all day long.
The only saving grace was that temperatures were tolerable – not the 100 degrees of the early August school start.
Pre-COVID, lockers were given to every student – they did not even have to share like we did back in the day. Each grade level would have lockers located in areas of the school with close proximity to their grade-level classrooms. These locations made sense logistically and helped appropriately gather students before and after school and during passing time.
When COVID introduced the idea of physical distancing, lockers (understandably) went away. I agreed because, let’s face it, they were likely germ havens and petri dishes for super-spreaders. I got this philosophy during the initial pandemic.
Watching Vivi walking to school hunched over early this week, though, tells me that kids need lockers to come back – now.
Entering this school year, our middle school was non-specific about the reasons behind lockers being kept closed to students. To a person, if asked, administration would point to COVID uncertainty and evolving CDC guidance on masking and/or physical distancing.
In addition to virus concerns with lockers, there is much written about whether the absence of lockers prevents dangerous objects from having a place to hide at school – that locker invite guns and drugs to school. Note: I could not locate data that supports that assertion.
I could buy the COVID-related arguments, but not the security related argument ones. If schools did not operate in locked doors environment, often with metal detectors, I might be more agreeable. I see these as arguments of convenience – for teachers and staff – with little to do with helping develop good future citizens of our communities.
Sure, locker serve the technical use of providing a place for kids to store excess supplies, but, more importantly, they force teens to socialize face-to-face with classmates. Moreover, each student takes ownership, albeit temporary, of the locker and its locked contents for the year with the idea of privacy if that privilege is not abused.
What else in any school can provide these ancillary benefits?
Not a desk, not an area in the office, not the bike racks outside.
While hanging at a locker now might look different – a few kids, phones in hand, updating Instagram with a fresh selfie – the idea of kids having no where to secure their things while they talk to classmates is crazy.
This needs to change.
As with most things that outrage me about our kids’ schools, I will let this one marinate until we are further clear of most COVID concerns.
In the meantime, I’ll be choosing between making unnecessary drop-off trips to school, or, watching my daughter haul a climbing-Everest-sized pack to school while texting the friend she could have been talking with at her own space.
- Annoyed dad – check.
