If you’re having an easier time walking through the 100s hallway, there’s a reason: The lockers were removed over the summer.
According to House 2 administrative assistant Sheila Bedard, only 80 students requested a locker this year out of the almost 1400 students attending LHS, which was one of the reasons the admin decided to remove the lockers.
House 2 Assistant Principal, Ryan O’Connor, who played a big role in administering these big changes, said the “opportunity presented itself” when the 100’s were going to be recarpeted. Plus, the lockers in that wing had not been replaced since 100’s hallway was added to LHS in 1982.
O’Connor did want to double-check that the lockers in the 100’s weren’t being used before they tore them down.
“We might have found one [being used],” O’Connor said.
Tearing down the lockers wasn’t a short process.
“So the idea was, can we remove these lockers, and use this as an opportunity to face lift the one-hundreds,” O’Connor said.
When it comes to the locker procedures, every kid used to be assigned a locker, regardless of if it crossed with their schedules.
“One of the added benefits that we are seeing is the old model of how everyone was assigned a locker,” O’Connor said. “Even though a very small percentage of kids actually used it.”
Currently, lockers have only been removed from the 100’s hallway, but there are still lockers in the 500’s, 600’s, and 300’s.
Having it be by a request process is easier for administration to keep track of and it can benefit students by customizing requests for where their lockers are for where the majority of their schedule is.
“It’s basically a request reservation,” O’Connor said. “Kids that want a locker can request it and the benefit is that they can request a location based on their schedule.”
Administration is willing to provide students with the opportunity for benefits towards having extra storage space if they can make it possible.
“If you find that you are heavier in the five hundreds, with the old model you could have had a model in the six hundreds, now you have the opportunity to place that strategically,” O’Connor said. “That’s an added benefit.”
Since so many teachers are using online textbooks and Google Classroom, students aren’t carrying large textbooks anymore.
“It’s not just at this school why kids aren’t using lockers as much,” O’Connor said. “The use of laptops, textbooks as themselves largely are going digital.”
Instead of having the lockers in the 100’s, O’Connor decided to add new bulletin boards. With new improvements coming to the hallways, the bulletin boards are something that the activities and administrators are going to take advantage of to raise awareness on new programs, and what goes on in the school after hours.
“The bulletin boards that were in bad condition are gone,” O’Connor said. “The ones that are in good condition to decent condition we’ve painted black just for an aesthetic look.”
Admin like O’Connor are hoping these renovations help brighten up this section of the school
“A building in a lot of ways affects the mood of the people that inhabit it,” O’Connor said. “But if something is not old, dark, and dank and tired and worn looking people are going to feel that, whereas if something is newer and brighter, that is going to uplift moods.”
