Fifth Period Students Lose Locker Privileges

Here at Eastside, P.E. lockers give students some privacy and a place to leave their items to prevent theft. Without them, physical education class can just seem like a hassle.

However, for the past few days, the lockers located next to Eastside’s gym have been closed during fifth period, forcing students to wear their P.E. clothes all day long. And students aren’t happy about it.

“I don’t like the fact that they closed the lockers,” says sophomore Maribel Cruz. She has P.E. during fifth period. “There is a reason we bought P.E. clothes. It’s not convenient because it’s getting hot outside and we’re sweaty teens.

“I don’t want to be in my sweaty clothes,” adds Maribel.

Coach Blunden, one of Eastside’s P.E. teachers, understand Maribel’s frustration. But, as a teacher, she also doesn’t know what else to do.

“I don’t think it’s fair for them, but we have to protect all of our students,” Coach Blunden says. “It was getting unsafe in the locker rooms and so for the best interests of the students, we have to close them. We have a lot of students, and they were acting inappropriately in the locker rooms and so they no longer have the privilege to be in there.”

“It’s really period by period,” Coach Blunden adds. “We have a lot of freshmen in 5th, so that may be the problem.”

But it’s not just the freshmen who are to blame.

“I noticed some sophomores were being immature too,” says Maribel. “I hate that we are all being punished, but they have to learn their lesson. And that includes the sophomores who were being annoying.”

“There isn’t really a way to punish freshmen without punishing the upper grades,” agrees sophomore Mia Erazo. “Everyone can be immature, but freshmen are the majority, like Mrs. Blunden said.”

Sophomore Jose Briseno agrees. “How are they going to punish just the freshmen?” he asks.

But some freshmen see it differently. “I think it’s unfair that other freshmen get the privilege taken away because others don’t know how to act,” says Nicole Nguyen. She has fifth period P.E. as well. “I feel like the students who always cause trouble should have consequences instead of just taking it away for all of us.”

The decision to close the lockers, and the poor behavior that prompted that decision, have prevented students from getting the physical education they deserve over the past few weeks.

“With the lockers closed, in a way, we just gave up the concept of P.E.” says sophomore Mia Erazo says. “We can’t dress up, so now we don’t exercise or do sports. The class has become really useless.”

Coach Blunden is frustrated by the situation as well, but she doesn’t know what else to do.

“We had security in there,” she says. We gave them warnings. We had admin out there talking to all of the students about what’s happening and the behavior they needed to stop and they chose not to stop. I feel like we did everything we could. And this is the last resort I didn’t want to do.”

“I never did it before,” she adds.