Lockers at Warren Central High School have been retired.

The announcement came as Principal Eric Green said with a change of organization in the school, there were no longer enough lockers in the A building to serve the students attending classes there.

“The biggest reason is we don’t have enough lockers,” he said.

The ninth-graders will largely be separated from the rest of the school, Green said.

“We’re trying to make B building ninth grade self contained,” he said. “There’s going to kind of be an academy feel to it.”

Green said the students would only need to go to the main building to eat lunch.

“Grades 10 through 12 will be over here in the A building,” he said. “In the past, ninth and tenth grade both had class in the B building. When you bring the tenth grade over here, just logistically we were going to have to put three and four kids in a locker, and that just wasn’t going to work out.”

Green said he also believes that at times with everything that goes on during class changes, lockers can be more of a hindrance than a benefit.

“As far as flow in the building, our kids really only go to four classes in a day,” he said. “I’ve heard some parents’ concerns over how heavy their book bags may be and things like that, but only going to four classes, it’s really not going to be that big of a deal.”

Green said students only going to four classes per day is part of the new odd/even block schedule.

“On odd days, students will attend their 1, 3, 5, 7 period classes,” he said. “Even days they will attend their 2, 4, 6, 8 period classes.”

Green added there is a big push in education to implement online textbooks, and he said Warren Central plans to use and implement as many of those types of strategies as possible.

“Kids having an overabundance of stuff in their book bag may not be because of us, but it may because of other stuff in their book bag,” he said.

Green said while the biggest reason the decision to get rid of lockers was the lack of space, other factors played a role as well.

“Sometimes kids do things with lockers that they shouldn’t do,” he said.

Tae Hubbard, vice president of the Warren Central Student Council and a senior at the school, said she was upset to hear the news the students wouldn’t have lockers anymore.

“The day I met Mr. Green, I walked into his office bare foot ready to talk,” she said. “When lockers came up in the conversation I asked was it true that we would not have lockers and he confirmed the rumor. As an athlete, I felt that we should be able to have lockers; even though, we only have a few classes a day, on game days athletes need to bring their bags or anything else to be ready for that night.”

Hubbard said Green understood the reasoning behind wanting lockers and explained the reasons why lockers weren’t feasible this year.

“He told me that lockers do tend to be a distraction,” she said. “When he said that it clicked in my head. Students hang around at lockers in between classes and use that as their reason to be late for class.”

Hubbard said it would be ideal for the students to have lockers because it’s not always easy to carry bags and not all teachers will allow you to leave them in their classrooms, but added Green was right, lockers can be a distraction.

“I know that from experience,” she said. “Lockers get jammed and that can make you tardy or students will hang out with their friends at their lockers.”

As far as lockers go, Green made a good decision, Hubbard said.

“Students need to be in class and learning,” she said. “Who’s to say we won’t get lockers later in the year. He said that is a possibility. As Vice President of Student Council, I only want the best for our student body, and as Principal, I know that he’s only doing what’s best for us.”