It is impossible for students to avoid accumulating a few new textbooks at the beginning of the school year.  Some are lucky enough to only need a few, but others are unfortunately have more than 10. It only takes a few to leave your back feeling bent over and sore at the end of the day.  Of course, not all of these books are required to be toted back and forth each day. When they are, however, students are more than happy to gripe about how heavy their backpacks are.  They walk down the hallway hunched over with backpacks that have the capability to be turned into lethal weapons.  They are completely blind to the fact that they are marching past dozens and dozens of new lockers.

Even though the new school is equipped with hundreds of decent-sized lockers they never seem to be used.  Strangely enough, students seem more willing to carry around all of their heavy supplies for a whole day than they are to open their lockers.  It is almost a tradition.

Senior Kalia Kornegay stated, “I don’t even know why people don’t use their lockers.  It doesn’t really make sense.  You always hear, ‘Eww.  No, I don’t use my locker,’ but I don’t know why.  Then again, I don’t use mine either, so there you go.”

Other students expressed the shared opinion that using lockers was in fact a waste of their time.

“It’s an inconvenience to have to find them and use them and go back to class,” explained junior Jayson Menders.  “Mine is so out of the way.  I would have to go up to the third floor, then back to the first floor for class, then all the way back up again.  It’s just a hassle.”

When asked to compare the inconvenience of using a locker to the inconvenience of a heavy backpack, Menders stated, “My bag is fine.  I don’t really mind it.  My back is made of steel, so it doesn’t hurt.”

Even the freshman who were used to using their lockers every day at Clark Lane do not seem to mind going without.

“I never use my locker and it’s a lot easier,” explained freshman Savannah Larson.  “You do have to carry around everything but you don’t have to go back.  I’m always late to my classes, so it kind of helps to not have to do that.”

Classmate TJ McBride concurs, “It’s better, definitely.  When you carry your backpack around you have everything with you and you don’t have to worry about leaving things in your locker.  I have opened my locker only once this year to be honest.  There’s really nothing to use it for.  It’s easier for me because my locker is on the third floor and I only have two classes there.  I don’t have to go up and down.”

It is hard to find someone who actually uses their locker.  One person who does is senior Kara Applegate, who has her own theory as to why everyone is so against using them.

“I think it’s because people think they’re useless,” said Applegate.  “We don’t use our lockers because no one else uses theirs.  We conform.”

Even with that being said, however, it does not seem that students’ habits will change any time soon.