Locking away lockers

When school started this year, many health precautions were needed to help keep Delta High School safe from COVID-19 and keep students safe when they returned. These precautions included checking temperature, wearing masks, and also social distancing. With the social distancing precaution, this meant no dances, no indoor school assemblies, and no lockers. With no lockers, students are forced to keep all of their heavy books and binders in their bags. Lockers provide a convenient and safe place to store student belongings so that their bags aren’t so heavy.

 “I don’t like it. I have gotten so used to keeping all my binders and books in my locker and not carrying around a heavy backpack, and this year it was very difficult to stay organized and have some place to put all my extra stuff,” said Baili Hulet. 

 But here’s why lockers are a precaution. Cheri Reece, part of the counseling staff, said “So we didn’t assign them, number one because they’re not six feet apart we can’t socially distance, you know every locker is full. That’s one concern. The second is just sanitizing them. We wouldn’t be able to do that, not that, you know, your locker would be touched by other people, but it could be. So that was the other issue.”

Luckily students can actually solve their problem by requesting lockers. “They actually can request, the difference this year is they’re not assigned. In the past, we’ve assigned every kid a locker, but this year it’s by request only,” said Reece. 

So students’ problems of carrying their heavy bags all day can be solved by simply going to the counseling office and requesting a locker.

But there is just one dilemma with everyone requesting lockers. “We’re trying to keep every third locker assigned. So every, you know, two lockers in between open. So if a lot of people start requesting them, we’ll have to put a cut-off because we won’t have enough lockers for everyone,” said Reece.