A controversial topic here in the Sweetwater district is that of lockers. Lockers are still used in some parts of California and in many places in America and the schools that use them are no worse for using them. People argue that lockers are a good place for students to sell illegal materials on campus or to keep things that are not allowed on the school campus. However with or without lockers rules will still be broken, drugs are still sold, and gum is still chewed. Lockers have no real affect on that front. For students at our schools not having lockers actually hurts them. When our parents were in school they had lockers and would place there notebooks and textbooks in there lockers. Students now have to carry all of there books around. I weighed my back pack and it weighs almost 16 pounds. That is a very heavy amount for a teenager-whose body is still growing and changing-to be carrying around. Research by pediatrics states that heavy backpacks carried by children compromise posture and cause future back injuries. So because we do not have lockers to hold our heavy backpacks in we are actually suffering not improving

-Monique Geisen