This year we were blessed with the addition of a new wing complete with fancy science classrooms, new attendance office and really nice bathrooms. However, if you walk down the hallways, you’ll notice one thing that was not included in the new wing: lockers. The fact that lockers were left out of the new addition only strengthens the idea that lockers just aren’t necessary anymore.

Thanks in part to the new addition; our high school is quite large. As nice as this is, it makes trying to make it to classes while using a locker nearly impossible. Let’s say someone has a class on the first floor at the end of the old wing and a locker at the end of the third floor. Unless you’re Usain Bolt, it’s going to be pretty hard to go from class to your locker, and make it to another class within five minutes. That’s assuming the hallways aren’t incredibly congested, you don’t have to talk to your friends, your locker doesn’t jam and don’t even think about trying to use the bathroom.  Given that it only takes three tardies to get Saturday school, a quick run to your locker just doesn’t seem needed.

But how will you keep all of your books without a locker? Well it appears most of the student body has already found the solution: backpacks. Backpacks let students always have access to their books, make locker trips obsolete and prevent students from forgetting assignments. Given that most students use a backpack to bring their books to school anyway, it now appears the majority of students simply keep their backpack with them. Some claim that lockers are still necessary for things like locker decorations, however with the advent of MyBigCampus, this has also become outdated. It just seems like more and more lockers are gathering dust.

Overall, the ECHO staff feels that lockers are unnecessary given the current size of the high school, limited time between classes, and having easy alternatives. The only thing weren’t not sure about is what the school will do with all of the uninhabited red boxes.