The lower C wing used to be filled with lockers. However, last year, they were stripped away. The same is happening to the other wings, with the lower B wing locker bay and the upper C wing locker bay. This trend is not exclusive to Robinson, happening to other schools as early as 2018, and from the looks of it, more and more lockers will be stripped away from locker bays in the future. So why are the lockers being removed? 

Scot Turner, subschool 9 assistant principal, provided insight on this topic. “I mean, the main reason for being removed, number one is students don’t use them anymore with the technology with everybody having a laptop,” Mr. Turner added that more lockers were removed in the senior and junior locker bays because they can leave things in their cars. He also said, “We’ll keep the outer ring of lockers in the junior and senior locker bay and keep a certain 150 to 300 [lockers] in the freshman locker bay and in the 10th grade locker bay because we find that freshmen and sophomores are still using them on some level, more so than the upperclassmen.”

Mr. Turner explained the future of the locker bays. “Well, right now we’re not going to replace them with anything,” he said. “The tables are very expensive, actually, and so over time we’re looking at the possibilities of putting, you know, places for students to sit or stand, like what they have in the 12th grade locker bay. We’re not quite there in terms of the expense [buying power] and [adding the tables and benches are] something we’ll have to do over a certain number of years. We’ll start looking at that, but for now, we are not going to replace them. In the junior locker bay, we’re looking at trying to replace that with some tables and chairs, but down here [freshman locker bay] we’re not- it’s pretty expensive. I know that that’s going to happen, but It’s just going to take time.” Mr. Turner also said that there are no future plans to remove any more lockers, however, there are renovation plans for Robinson in 2032. 

The demand for lockers has been decreasing as well. According to Mr. Turner, only 142 freshmen out of the 675 freshman class wanted lockers, and if demand does spike up again, the blue lockers and the other lockers in the music hallway are still available. Mr. Turner says, “I think that the world is moving away from textbooks. I mean, you think about it right? Like I go on Amazon to buy a book and I can buy a textbook or I can buy an eBook for $20 cheaper, right? Why would I buy the textbook when now with technology I can highlight- in my eBook, I can circle. I can do other things, so I think that if anything, I think the technology is going to take in almost a completely different direction, we’ll never have an issue with running out of lockers, even after we pull them out because of the blue lockers that we have going down the admin hallway, there’s and then back behind that hallway. We still have another 800 lockers down that direction, so we’re not going to run out of lockers.” 

Lockers seem like they are becoming a thing of the past. Paper and books are rendered increasingly obsolete by the efficiency of online resources and online note taking. An anonymous freshman said, “I have classes all over the place, and so all the lockers are…right there in front of us. The removal of them has made [walking] a lot easier.” They do use their locker regularly. They also said, “I think [the removal of lockers has] been good. Not a lot of people use the lockers anyway, so it’s nice to have space.” With the extraction lockers in the locker bays, they also wanted to see, “benches, tables to sit down and relax in, like in the 12th grade subschool.” Another anonymous sophomore shared the same sentiment, saying, “I think the lockers really need to get removed in the freshman locker bay because that locker bay is a hot mess.” They also wanted to see tables and benches like the senior locker bay. The freshman locker bay is almost universally known to be hard to traverse as people are often stuck there trying to get to their classes. So far, the removal of lockers has removed congestion during passing time, so perhaps the problem in the freshman locker bay could be resolved when the lockers are removed. Perhaps people can enjoy these locker bays more now with the addition of benches and tables and the removal of the lockers that cause unnecessary congestion. In the future, locker bays will not only be known for lockers but also as a place to sit down and chat with friends. Locker bays may not even have lockers anymore, and may simply serve as a place to relax before school begins and during breaks.