With 1,741 students packed into Branham, some changes have been made regarding locker use. Students are now encouraged to share the same lockers and give out their combinations.

According to Bookroom Secretary Susie Fleming, school officials foresaw that lockers would be an issue as the population grew. Two wings that stored hundreds of lockers are scheduled to be demolished to make way for new buildings, exacerbating the situation.

“With a significant increase in annual student population over the last three years and a significant reduction in the overall number of usable lockers through deterioration, breakage, and upcoming demolition for new construction, it seemed possible that there may not be enough lockers available to be assigned to each student who might need one,” Ms. Fleming said.

Despite all this, overcrowding hasn’t turned out to be an issue.  

“A thorough physical review of the usable, unassigned locker units on campus has revealed that there are enough available to the approximately 275 students who have requested a need for a locker for this school year,” Fleming said.

Only about 580 lockers are currently assigned, and over 100 are being shared by multiple students.

While sharing lockers helps to free up other lockers for use, it does present a security issue, said sophomore Lauren Clift.

“A pro of sharing lockers is that since some people don’t even use their locker all that often, if two people can share, then it saves lockers for other people that need it,” Lauren said.  “[However], someone could break into your locker more easily, and take your stuff.”

Principal Cheryl Lawton said she believes that a lot of students check out lockers and never use them.

“I would say at least 70 percent of them are not even being used,” Lawton said. “I’ve talked to students who said, ‘I have a locker, but I don’t remember where it is, I don’t remember what my combination is, I just know I got one.’  So we’re finding that people don’t actually need them.”

One factor of how much students use their locker is location.  Sophomore Anna Ha uses her locker only occasionally because it’s in an inconvenient place, and she doesn’t have time to stop by it between classes.

“I have math first period, but then I have zero period Spanish,” Ha said. “And if I leave… my math textbook in the locker, then I won’t have time to get to that class.”  

Sophomore Eliana Bower agreed that location does contribute to locker use.  

“I think that if people got to choose where their locker was,” she said, “they would use it more.”