The rapid growth of Dominion High School has caused a lack of lockers for our senior class. Our school has been open for 13 years and the student population has grown immensely since, now it is now running out of lockers.

Dominion has 1,730 lockers and approximately 1,600 students. Although, 250 of those lockers are occupied by The Academy of Science students, another 37 lockers are used by students with special needs. Senior don’t automatically receive lockers, meaning there are only about 160 lockers still available.

This issue was first recognized last year and that is when Dominion started the idea of optional lockers for seniors. Many students have said that they just don’t have any need for a locker and rarely use it. Because of this, seniors were not assigned lockers. Dr. Brewer said,”Many students across grades wouldn’t use their lockers if I didn’t make them.”

This year freshman, sophomores, and juniors are assigned lockers while seniors must go through an application process. Freshman and sophomores need lockers for gym, because students are not allowed to bring bags or backpacks into the locker rooms. The juniors also need them because it was an issue last year during SOL testing season, because students would still have their school needs with them in the testing locations.

For seniors who used their lockers in previous grades and wanted one this year, would go through the application process. On a half sheet of paper, students would write down their name, student ID and team name.

All of the students who applied to get a locker got one. For seniors still interested in a locker, it is not too late to apply There are still lockers available. Ms. Picado, located in the front of counseling office, is currently taking care of the lockers and will assign lockers to students who wish to receive one.

Despite the fact that there are some open lockers, seniors still face the problem of not having anywhere to put there stuff. Some students get past this problem by keeping their stuff in teacher’s classrooms or sharing a locker with several other students.

But the biggest problem Dominion is prospected to face is during AP testing later this year. Students will not be able to bring anything to the testing, but will still have class for other courses. “One challenge for students without lockers, what do you do during standardized testing?” Dr. Brewer said.

There is currently no plan for AP testing and no plan seems to be in the works. This doesn’t seem like it will be an issue for long, because AOS will meet at Dominion for the last time next year, which will free up about 250 lockers that AOS students currently take up.