West provides locker rooms for students to keep their gear and equipment for Physical Education class, but some students use their gym locker as a personal locker. Inside the gym locker room, some students keep their valuable belongings, school materials, and backpacks.

“It is supposed to be used for keeping their tennis shoes, a jacket, and P.E shirts. However, I’ve been noticing that some students are using it for other purposes like for keeping their school bags,” Physical Education teacher Dakota LaMaack said.

This term, cases of possesions being stolen from the locker room have been on the rise. For the past three years at West, LaMaack shared that incidents of theft have happened before. However, she thinks that the previous term has had the most cases of items being stolen in the locker room.

“The first term, it didn’t really happen. But the [second] term has been bad within the past two weeks. There has been a lot compared to the first term and actually, compared to any other year I’ve been here,” LaMaack said.

As any student who’s taken a Physical Education course knows, the P.E. department provides padlocks for students at the beginning of the second term.

“The P.E. department gives out padlocks to each student to use so that they can lock up their items in the lockers,” LaMaack said. “But things are being stolen out of backpacks that are not locked in lockers.”

From car keys to jewelry, body lotion to body spray, students find themselves missing their personal belongings. However, junior Syafira Adani and freshman Shayla White encountered a different situation. Nothing has been stolen, but their lockers are left in a complete mess.

“It only happened once. When I went back after gym, my things were torn apart. My jeans were outside the locker and my bag was open,” Adani said.

Adani used the gym’s locker rooms last term to keep her clothes and things like phone and wallet while she was in gym class. After the incident, she started locking up to make sure that her things remain safe.

“Now, I store my important things inside my gym locker with a padlock,” Adani said.

Some students think that it might be just a prank by a student trying to mess around. However, no reports have been made as to why these incidents became prevalent or who is behind it.

“Nothing is stolen and I thought it was weird. [They] pulled a bunch of my stuff out, but didn’t take anything,” White said. 

And whether it is a prank or not, LaMaack left a piece of advice for students regarding their use of the gym lockers.

“The best advice I could give is: lock your personal belongings up. If you bring your backpack to class and you want to leave it in the locker room, that’s fine,” LaMaack said. “However, take your cellphone with you, your keys, your money and anything that is valuable. Lock up your locker.”