Althouse: School lockers are becoming extinct.

December 6, 2011

School lockers are becoming extinct.

Students aren't using them anymore.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...: Kids today. So much less litigious. I remember when I was a kid...; 12/6/11, 8:32 PM
Anonymous said...: File "suing them any more" under lawyers brain-fart.; 12/6/11, 8:32 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Sorry for the typo.; 12/6/11, 8:34 PM
edutcher said...: If we ever need a 300 division army, we'll have lots of kids in shape for it.; 12/6/11, 8:41 PM
KCFleming said...: Geez, so where are the jocks supposed to stuff the skinny dweebs now?; 12/6/11, 8:45 PM
Shanna said...: Keys to Safer Schools, an Arkansas-based safety training and advocacy group, has recommended that school districts remove lockers to prevent violence.

"It gives kids a place to hide things," said Mike Nelson, co-founder of Keys to Safer Schools and a licensed counselor.

Oh for gods sakes! These kind of jerks are the reason I wasn't allowed to carry a freaking backpack in high school.

Kids need places to put stuff. Even if it's just lunch. What about the kids that have instruments?; 12/6/11, 8:47 PM
traditionalguy said...: What will the Master Lock Company do for a product now?; 12/6/11, 8:49 PM
Chuck66 said...: Hmmm, I used my locker for two things:

1) Jacket. Will always need that in the upper Midwest in the winter. Just no need to lock it up (I always had old jackets).

2) Books and notebooks. They say that kids these days don't have paper books or notebooks.; 12/6/11, 8:50 PM
KCFleming said...: Hell, if they want a safer school, send them all to Khan Academy.; 12/6/11, 8:51 PM
Ex-Dissident said...: I also didn't have much use for them in Junior and High School, but they sure were utilized when I got to Med School. Microscopes are heavy and it is just too weird to walk from class to class with a skeleton.; 12/6/11, 8:59 PM
coketown said...: I think cars, rather than cell phones or absence of books, explain this trend. Why store your stuff in a locker when you can put it in your trunk? And why hang out in the hallway during your breaks when you can drive somewhere fun instead? At least, that's my observation looking back on my high school years. Lockers were on the way out even then.; 12/6/11, 9:00 PM
SteveR said...: Where my kids have gone to school they have been removed by the school district.; 12/6/11, 9:04 PM
MadisonMan said...: I don't think my son uses his locker during school. His classes can be far apart, and the locker isn't exactly centrally located. There's no time to fight through a crowded hall, swimming upstream like a salmon, switching out books, and then getting back to his next class. But he does put stuff in it -- his coat. I think lockers are shared at West, so one locker is for two people.

@Shanna, at West (my kid's school), there are separate instrument lockers in the band room.; 12/6/11, 9:09 PM
MadisonMan said...: How can a no locker policy be practical in a climate where kids are wearing heavy coats? (As Chuck66 already noted).; 12/6/11, 9:11 PM
Anonymous said...: Do away with installing lockers in a new school and save $200K on a $30 Million building. Big F'n deal.; 12/6/11, 9:33 PM
John Burgess said...: The kids have smartened up.

Schools are now opening lockers at will and having the police test their drug dogs' aptitudes on the lockers. Why would a kid think he had any privacy in his locker?; 12/6/11, 10:06 PM
jamboree said...: What do they search to look for any drugs the little dears might be doing now? Will they track their phones (take your battery out kids!) and put little federal GPS's on their wheelie book suitcases?

(Around here they do have a lot on their Kindles/thumb drives, but they also have a ton of books.)

I need a locker just for the gym. It's difficult to decide where to put any tech I can't carry (ipod) during gym time.; 12/6/11, 10:14 PM
cassandra lite said...: So much for the return of The Wonder Years.; 12/6/11, 10:31 PM
rhhardin said...: Where do the rifle club members keep their guns?; 12/7/11, 4:48 AM
Psychedelic George said...: I came across another quaint item yesterday in an antique store: a circa 1966 "Man From UNCLE" metal lunchbox.

It was battered, of course, covered with blood stains, chunks of matted hair and scalp still tangled in its hinges

I am a survivor of the Lunchbox Wars. Our children will never know or little understand what we, the greatest lunchroom generation, endured so that they might enjoy the fruits of peanut-buttered liberty.

When I think of the second period Thermos Assault of 1967, I..I..I wake up screaming. So many brave boys and girls lost...Four Eyes, Spaz, High Waters, Rufus Leaking....Had I only a nickel for ice cream that day, there is no telling how many lives...{choke}. I can still the milk spewing from the nostrils of those around me.....; 12/7/11, 6:22 AM
Shanna said...: @Shanna, at West (my kid's school), there are separate instrument lockers in the band room.

My locker senior year was in the band building, but you may be right that there were place to store instruments there. (Even a locked band room wasn't safe in 11/12th because there was a way to open the door when locked if you knew the trick.)

The coat point is also good. I may have only hit my locker in the morning and afternoon and maybe lunch but it was still useful.; 12/7/11, 6:24 AM
Mary Beth said...: At my children's school, they are not allowed to carry backpacks to class. There are also some bizarre dress code rules about what kinds of jackets may and may not be worn during school hours. I think it's supposed to prevent them from concealing drugs or weapons but the whole thing is idiocy.; 12/7/11, 6:27 AM
dbp said...: Two of my three daughters use lockers. The one in high school and the one in middle school use them. The elementary school girl doesn't, since there they only have cubbies.

The thing I find weird and kind of don't believe, is that they do not have showers in the locker rooms at her high school. She says everybody would go home to shower after sports, but what do you do if you have a fairly rigorous PE class? Just seems gross to me.; 12/7/11, 8:58 AM
cassandra lite said...: Psychedelic George,

I'm with ya, bro. Like Woodstock, I was there. I saw it with my own eyes, the terrible milk spewing. Oh, the humanity. I remember it well.; 12/7/11, 9:04 AM
Tasha said...: As a college student, I could definitely use a locker. I'm a junior, and I'm already on my third backpack: the bottom fell out of one due to the weight of the books I was carrying, and one strap ripped off the second when I picked it up after class. The current backpack is doing fine, but I sometimes have to use both hands to pry the books far enough apart to wedge something else in there. Finals are next week, at least!

I didn't have a locker as a freshman in high school, but I had (and gratefully used) one the other three years. It was useful for coats, lunch, and books, although I generally just switched out the morning set of books for the afternoon set at lunchtime.; 12/7/11, 9:20 AM
Jane the Actuary said...: Agreed -- taking out lockers makes no sense. Building a school without lockers? If they've designed it so that the hallway is wide enough to accomodate lockers at some later point, maybe. But I don't get the bit about "extra space" unless the norm in some schools is to have the lockers, not in hallways, but some dedicated room (which would be very odd!). If kids carry their backpacks around everywhere because there's no time to get to the locker, then there's a school design issue, too. But is it so continually warm in the South that kids never need to wear jackets? That's what I don't get.; 12/7/11, 10:08 AM