Antelope Valley District to Remove Students’ Lockers

Despite virtually unanimous opposition from students, the governing board of the Antelope Valley Union High School District decided Wednesday to remove almost all of the nearly 7,800 student lockers from its three main campuses by next fall.

By a 3-2 vote, the district’s board of trustees opted to join a small but growing number of Southern California school districts that have done away with lockers to either save money, reduce disruptions or deny students a hiding place for contraband such as weapons and drugs.

However, officials of the nearly 10,000-student district said the elimination of lockers, a venerable high school tradition, was not primarily aimed at drugs or weapons. The move was mainly meant to eliminate tardiness and save the district most of the estimated $63,000 a year it spends maintaining the lockers.

Students are frequently late for class because they loiter at their lockers, school officials said.

“In the long run, it’s going to be the best improvement for everyone,” said school board member Steve Landaker, who was elected in November and provided the swing vote Wednesday. A prior school board had rejected a similar plan last May, but the issue had surfaced several times since.

School board President Larry Rucker, who opposed the move, called it a sad day for the district. He also chided his colleagues for not agreeing to provide an extra set of books for basic subjects to be kept in classrooms, so students could leave some of their own books at home.

Students had voiced the same complaint, saying a typical complement of high school books that students would have to start carrying for the entire day could weigh more than 25 pounds. “We really do need that extra set of books if the lockers are taken out,” said Debbie Carbo, a 16-year-old junior.

District officials had discussed spending up to $1 million to acquire the extra books in four basic subjects, but the school board agreed only to consider including some book purchases in next year’s district budget.

Under the board’s action, only 100 lockers will remain at each of the district’s three main campuses. Those will be reserved mostly for physically handicapped students. Antelope Valley High School has 3,038 lockers, Palmdale High has 2,800 and Quartz Hill has 1,920.

In addition, the policy means that the district’s two high schools under construction--Highland and Littlerock--also will have only 100 lockers each when they open in 1991. The district had estimated providing a full set of lockers at the schools would have cost $320,000.

In a strange twist, however, the board’s decision means that three other schools, which now have no lockers at all, will get 50 apiece by next fall. Those schools are the Littlerock and Highland campuses and the district’s Desert Winds continuation school.