Over the past couple of weeks I've been attempting to schedule a time to meet with Mr. Mason, the assistant headmaster, to discuss the change in locker policy at the high school. As the assistant headmaster, Mr. Mason is directly responsible for supervising the assignment and regulation of lockers at the high school and the change in policy. today, during the first lunch block, I finally caught him in the cafeteria and was able to have a short discussion with him about the issue. So during lunch I approached him and we had a brief walk and talk discussion on the subject. the main question I asked him was why there was the change from being able to officially switch lockers to not between this year and last year. His response made sense. He said that the reason for the change was that last year you had kids who were not registering, and didn't even bother to take the time, and also kids who were registered for the same locker. He even sighted that at one point six kids were registered for the same locker. He followed up by saying that the new policy was mostly an attempt to control this issue, and that it was simply to see if it would work, and if not maybe something else would be tried. He also mentioned that soon all of the lockers across the three schools that are not registered and taken will be zip tied to prevent multiple usage by students. While I think that all of his points make complete sense both from an organizational and administrative standpoint, I don't think that it takes into account the student's needs. I think in organizing a locker system, teachers need to consider what works best for the students, and what works most efficiently. I also think, that based on the conclusions I've come to, that actually adherence to this policy is almost non-existent and that students generally just don't carer about the rule, that the best thing to do might be to assign specific lockers, but 1. make it more clear where the lockers are instead of just giving out a number, and 2. To assign them based on a student's schedule or personal activities, and not just at random because, as has been shown by all of the information I have gathered, that system simply does not work, and we need one that does.
Why is it a problem if multiple students use the same locker? What am I missing?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wonder if it's a problem that some kids don't use lockers at all but instead lug their books around on their backs. Why don't they leave books in their lockers? Doesn't their decision to not use their lockers tell us something? Has the "register your locker" campaign been very public? do kids know about it?
Hey Gabe!
ReplyDeleteFirst off I think it's great you were able to speak to Mr. Mason after hearing about how many people just all together FAILED to speak with us! Also to be honest, I briefly heard about the new locker policy but totally forgot and I think that many probably barely listen to this new policy/care about it unless it directly affects them. I think it's good that Mr. Mason was kind of open to there being change IF the current setup just doesn't work.
It seems really silly to just try a system with no thought of how it would affect all the students. I also agree with Mr. Fischer. It's really bad to be lugging so many books around all day, especially for people with back problems (like me).
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