This school year, as kids lined up at registration with their school clothes on, dreading the start of the school year, they had a different kind of surprise coming their way. The seniors, their final year expected to be spent upstairs, where their seniority is made apparent by their most sought after lockers, found out they had been placed in lockers previously given to sophomores.

Some seniors were unhappy about the situation, but not just for the reason that their seniority was supposed to mean a better locker placement, as Senior Emily West puts it.

“Being a senior and having your locker upstairs isn’t just a nice privilege, it makes things much more convenient. Most senior classes are upstairs, so it’s less of a walk and makes it much easier to get to class,” West said.

Since some of the seniors and juniors found out their lockers would be downstairs, it was hard to understand because most of upperclassmen classes are upstairs, so the change in locker assignments made it more difficult to navigate from class to class.

“It’s actually not that big of a deal, I just think it would be more convenient to have my locker upstairs because I have more classes upstairs,” said senior Jordyn Bilger. “The whole situation is kind of frustrating in that aspect.”

The upstairs is a kind of heaven after being downstairs for two years, as both a junior and sophomore. As students that are not in their final year of high school, the upstairs is a haven from navigating the crowded hallways of the downstairs.

“Sophomores having lockers upstairs without working hard for two years to earn that privilege is frustrating.” said West. “To some, this seems like whining, but it isn’t. Privileges must be earned, not handed to people.”

It’s like waiting as a little kid for Christmas to come, as some seniors make it seem. The freedom of not having to be downstairs with the younger kids, and being the oldest in the school, with the best lockers in the best spots.

“For as long as I’ve been at Carroll I couldn’t wait to be upstairs cause that’s when you knew it was your senior year,” said senior Cassandra Bohne. “But now they changed it, I feel like a little kids who got a piece of candy stolen from them. I feel like a junior again. I just don’t understand why they did that.”

As Bohne puts it, it like taking away a sort of promise from the older kids, and some of the juniors too. The reason some are so upset is not only because of the fact that they have the locker downstairs, but that the sophomores have the ones upstairs, it’s becoming more of a territorial situation.

“Upstairs has always been Senior and Junior territory and downstairs has always been sophomore territory,” said junior Chloe Nuttle. “So switching it around will make people mad because of the fact certain people have waited so many years for a certain spot upstairs and are now stuck downstairs.”

Although students have been feeling down about their new locker placement, Mr. Bitting said there was no thought about seniority, but more thought about where everyone could go. Many of the lockers downstairs are only able to fit kids every other locker because of the way the walls are not able to hold up to pressure from both sides.

“The sophomore class is the bubble,” said Bitting. The sheer amount of kids that has now entered the 10-12 building has made it harder to make the sophomore lockers every other, making so that they have had to split up classes in order to fit all of the students in areas where there were enough “useable” lockers.

The explanation of the lockers was merely a mathematical solution to the amount of kids now in the main building. Since the sophomore class is so big, this will most likely be the norm because of the need for lockers for each student. This year’s freshmen class is smaller than the sophomores, so the lockers should rotate back to normal after the sophomores become upperclassmen.

The solution focused on how to fit everyone in an area where lockers could be used, with no real thoughts of what class each student was in. The next thing to think about, says Bitting, is how to make sure everyone is comfortable in lunches, because of the mass amounts of students in the lunchroom.