SAN JOSE, CALIF.⸺ Lockers at Silver Creek High School are mainly used for P.E., are they an addition that students want for general purposes today? Lockers are essential to P.E. but aren’t needed otherwise.

High schools in the U.S. are known for having lockers that students can use to store their heavy textbooks and personal belongings. However, it may come as a surprise to some people that lockers aren’t used that way in the States as often.

At least where I’m from, there isn’t really a hallway full of classes and lockers inside one huge building, but instead multiple buildings with open space, like a mini college. It’s funny that most American high schools are portrayed this way, even in media created here in the United States.

Most schools in the ESUHSD, short for East Side Union High School District, only use lockers to store belongings during P.E. That wasn’t the case a few decades ago, as Silver Creek did have general-use lockers for students. However, they were removed due to students using them for illegal purposes relating to drugs around 2005 to 2009 according to Eric Luescher, a P.E teacher and former student at Silver Creek High School. 

When I talked to Luescher, he said that another reason for removing lockers is because the school planned on adding “Ebooks” so that students didn’t need to bring heavy textbooks all day. Ebooks were never implemented in their original iteration. 

Luescher explained, “It was a big hassle because students were just carrying big backpacks around.” 

According to San Jose Spotlight, drug use is still a problem in San Jose, and will likely be similar to San Francisco in that aspect. Despite that, should we still add them back to schools in the ESUHSD? There are pros and cons when it comes to proposing a decision like this.

Students may bring something to school that they need but it might be too heavy to carry around all day. When I had P.E. during sophomore year, locker rooms were a good place to socialize while we got ready to do cardio and sweat profusely. Having a place to store large items and such can be very beneficial and convenient.

During the first week of school coming back from holiday break, additional news was added in the morning announcements. An influx of belongings was stolen in the locker room during class. This raises the question of whether lockers would be safe to store belongings in, even if it’s for P.E.

Were belongings stolen because of faulty locks or student ignorance? When I went to take pictures for this article, I noticed a few bags left outside of the lockers, likely due to too much space being taken inside the lockers. In my experience, I was able to fit most if not all of my belongings in my locker. 

During the announcement, Hector Flores, a student advisor at Silver Creek High School, clarified this issue was due to belongings being put outside of the lockers instead of inside them or the locks not being safely secured and set.

When I talked about general lockers with Khoi Tran, a senior at Silver Creek High School, said, “It sounds convenient, but impractical as it takes a lot of space and is an area that can be very unsanitary.”