Lockers reserved for freshmen have been especially vacant this year due to the students not using their lockers on a daily basis, if at all.

Freshmen Mercy Asamoah has an idea why this might be happening: the dial combination lock is too hard to use. According to Asamoah, it took her 5-10 tries to get the locker open in the initial attempt. After that, she has not used it since.

Another freshman who does not use her locker, Riana Tadonki, explained “I do not use my locker often because I feel more at ease if I have everything with me. I think that if I put my things in the locker then I will forget them.”

According to data from a hangout app poll with 44 respondents, 81% of freshmen students wrote that they do not use their lockers at all. Also, 77% wrote that they did not like the current locker set up.

Placement of the locker also can affect how much use it gets. Asamoah said, “It does [affect the usage of my locker] because it is not on top, it is below. [The other student’s] is on top and it kind of messes up everything for me.”

Asamoah believes that one solution could be the school getting keypads to replace the current dial combination locks. This could reduce the time used opening the locker and make it a more convenient system for the students.

Although 23% students think the set up is helpful, only 18% of students said that they use their lockers even once a week. Creating a solution to this problem could include providing some change to the current system, or simply encouraging more school-wide use of the lockers.

Tadonki offered, “I don’t really see any substitute to a locker, there is nothing better since you can go get it from your locker and it does not disturb and other classes if you need to get your stuff during class.” She also mentioned, “I think that I really should be using it more because my backpack is too heavy.”

For notes to incoming freshmen, Tadonki advises “them to carefully pick out what they are going to put in and take out of their locker during the day so that they do not need to ask the teacher during class to get it.” She continued, “It is a constant grab and dump.” For the best way to organize your locker use, Tadonki says, “grab your first 2 periods stuff in the morning and during lunch grab the stuff for the last two periods.”