With the overflow of students at Joliet West equating to over 3,300 students, the hallways end up being very crowded. As a result, students have a hard time being able to get to class and travel through the hallways during passing periods without being late to class.

When students have extra time between classes, they would most likely choose to socialize and catch up on the latest gossip instead of going to their locker to get items for their next class. This leaves going to their locker not among the top priorities of stuff they have to do throughout the day. Another scenario could be that their locker is nowhere near where someone’s classes are located, making it even harder for someone to make it on time to their next class.

If someone’s locker is located in the B building, the overflow of traffic can make it nearly impossible for anyone to get to their locker and use it without being shoved around into the atrocity of kids.

Taylor Durak, A Junior expressed, “With my locker being in the busiest hallway throughout the school, it was a struggle to be at my locker while the flow of people were constantly walking through.” Asking kids to move out of the way each day in order to get to a locker is not something students should have to deal with and isn’t fair for others that do not have lockers in the busiest part of the school.

Mrs. Crim, a teacher at West stated, “I still believe that students need a safe place to put their belongings while in school even though it is hard to access a locker with the amount of kids that attend West.” With this being said, storing more belongings in a safe and locked place helps to prevent less stuff from getting stolen.

Over the years, West has experienced many counts of stealing and by looking at lockers with this perspective helps to see that increasing the usage of lockers can actually help to reduce stealing. A senior, Leticia Castillo would agree with this perspective as she expressed “Lockers to me are like my own space at school where I can leave my stuff and not worry about it.”

While some people support lockers for being somewhere they can have their items kept safe and private, others think lockers are not the move when there is hardly enough time to get to each class.