Memories spill out with the trash on locker day
Garbage bins spill over with schoolwork, unwanted supplies pile up on tables and unclaimed lost-and-found items that include crumpled pink underwear line the hallway.
It’s locker cleanout day in Edith Rodgers Junior High School, at 8308 Mill Woods Rd., and the purge is swift and ruthless. Select binders and textbooks remain, study materials for this week’s exams, but everything else must go, says principal Camille Loken.
“It’s actually quite a big undertaking,” says Loken as students fill the hallway and unfasten combination locks. “Lots comes out of the lockers.”
Students across Edmonton are emptying desks and lockers as school winds down for summer vacation. Library books are reclaimed, lost lunches re-emerge and loads of garbage and recycling are hauled to the curb.
Masuma Sheikh’s locker is a hive of activity as two friends help the Grade 9 student sift through hundreds of creased worksheets, tests and quizzes. The 15-year-old girl admits she hasn’t cleaned all year.
“I have my winter stuff in here,” she says, pulling a brown fleece hat and thick red gloves off the top shelf. “I’ve had my Kleenex box in here since the beginning of the year.”
Staff and students stop to gawk at the growing pile around Masuma’s locker that includes a candy cane from Christmas.
“That’s not actually the worst one I’ve seen,” said math teacher Candace Willis. “It’s the worst one this year.”
Willis takes a picture. “That’s going in the yearbook,” she tells Masuma.
Masuma’s friends gasp as she pulls out a plastic container packed with food.
“That’s from yesterday,” she protests.
“Masuma’s locker is worse than a cat’s cage,” quips Mubshra Arshad, 14, who has kept her own locker clean all year.
Students at Edith Rogers School do three locker cleanouts in June to pare down the clutter in stages before school dismisses for summer break.
“I felt kind of sad to let it go because it was a memory.” ALYSSA RUDKIN ON A PARTLY EATEN COOKIE IN HER LOCKER
There are locker cleanouts in December and March too, to make sure no food is left over from winter vacation and spring break.
Staff also lays out all the lost-and-found items in June along a hallway wall so students can claim lost things — winter toques and gloves, running shoes, a single boot, various shirts and even pink patterned underwear. Unclaimed items get washed and sent to Goodwill.
Teens donate leftover school supplies to next year’s students by depositing them on large folding tables in the hall. The collection this year includes packages of three-holed paper, reinforcements, glue sticks, labels, binders, scissors and blue Adidas sneakers.
Samnit Ghai says he filled a garbage bag half full of locker overflow to take home, mostly jackets, sweaters, shorts and pants. “I change lots in gym,” shrugs the 13-year-old Grade 7 student.
Alyssa Rudkin found a partially eaten oatmeal-raisin cookie in her locker, which looked much like it did in October.
“It was stashed in the corner,” she says of the cookie she tossed in the trash. “I felt kind of sad to let it go because it was a memory.”
Alyssa admits she can be a hoarder. She recently rediscovered some art in her locker she had built from broken rulers and pencils. Alyssa took that home along with a magnetic dry-erase board a friend wrote on, plus a school schedule she wrote on with an old quill pen. The items have sentimental value, she says. “I do tend to keep a lot of stuff.”
The last day of class for Edmonton public school students is Thursday. Catholic schools let out Friday for summer vacation.