After years of lugging packs, Sheldon kids may get lockers.

Byline: Anne Williams The Register-Guard

For 13 years, Sheldon High School has lived with the oddball distinction as the only high school most anyone can think of without student lockers.

That's about to change - and soon.

If all goes well, the district will install the first of 1,600 lockers - more than enough for every student - during spring break, Principal Bob Bolden told students and staff in a morning announcement Friday. The rest should soon follow.

Bolden could hear the cheers from classrooms as soon as he broke the news, he said.

"It was suggested we could wait until summer," he said, "but I'm quite sure our students want them as soon as possible."

But the prospect of lockers drew a mixed response from students and staff. A group of freshman boys said it was unnecessary. They don't mind lugging all their stuff around in a backpack.

"Nobody wants them," David Moffitt said, sitting with friends at lunch.

"I can get ahold of everything I need just by pulling off my backpack," said Dustin Snell, who was toting a CD player, CDs, two textbooks, three notebooks, a planner and pencils and pens.

They'd heard that backpacks will be banned - something Bolden said is unlikely but possible, depending on how much classroom floor space continues to be eaten up by backpacks.

Like a lot of students, the boys said they rarely use the "bag check" - a service started several years ago to help lighten the load. Staffed spottily by volunteers and campus supervisors who say they have better things to do, the bag check is in a small room off the lounge. Kids line up between classes to drop off or pick up belongings, which are placed on alphabetically labeled shelves.

Students complain that the crowds make them late, and that the room is often locked when they need something. A few students have had items stolen, too.

Kayla Wheeler, also a ninth-grader, doesn't carry much stuff, so she generally keeps her backpack with her. Still, she said, she's looking forward to having a locker, and believes most other kids are, too.

"I'm very happy about it, personally, because carrying around a backpack is really a burden on my back," she said. "It was quite a shock coming to a school with no lockers."

According to a Register-Guard article, Sheldon's 1,200 lockers were yanked out in the summer of 1992, after then-Principal Jim Ford and other administrators - fresh from a school safety conference - decided they were too much trouble. Tucked away in bays and difficult to monitor, the lockers had apparently become targets for graffiti, theft, vandalism and other illicit activity. They were also in crummy shape.

While there'd been murmurs for years about replacing the lockers, it wasn't until this year that the idea gathered steam. Parent Kendra Moos, a frequent bag check volunteer, was one of the leading agitators.

"I don't know about you, but lockers were a big part of high school life," she said. "That's where we got asked to dances. That's where we decided to have slumber parties."

Not only are heavy backpacks a proven cause of back troubles for youths, they pose a real hazard in classrooms, she said. People trip over them, and who knows what would happen in the event of a fire?

Still, the cost of lockers seemed prohibitive, but then came a lucky break. Bids for Sheldon's planned new science wing, part of a voter-approved bond issue, came in low, freeing up some $75,000. After a petition drive and several meetings with administrators, the district agreed to earmark the money for lockers, leaving another $25,000 for parents to raise. They've already started.

"I am so glad the district accelerated it," said Moos, whose son, Bo, a freshman, had his backpack stolen off the floor earlier this year.

Senior David Delacruz said he's sorry it took the district so long. He's had to use his car as a locker, forcing him to traipse outside several times a day.

"It's been annoying to me not to have a locker," he said. "I figure with us being the superior school in the district, shouldn't we have lockers?"

SHELDON HIGH SCHOOL LOCKER PROJECT

Sheldon parents must raise $25,000 of the $100,000 cost to install 1,600 lockers.

To donate: Send checks to the Eugene Education Fund, P.O. Box 1015, Eugene, OR 97440. Designate checks for Sheldon Locker Project.

CAPTION(S):

Darin Henry, a campus supervisor at Sheldon High School in Eugene, works in the bag check room. The school hopes to have lockers for students soon, but parents need to raise $25,000 of the $100,000 cost.