Keeping Students' Possessions Secure

“In recent years, the dollar value of items that students are bringing to school has gone up,” says Kevin McCarthy, commercial product manager for Oak Creek, Wis.-based Master Lock. “In addition to their books, musical instruments and cell phones, they’re bringing tablets and lap tops which, if stolen, are expensive to replace.”

To that end, parents and students need confidence that the items brought to school are appropriately secured in students’ lockers. Well-built locks offer that assurance. “Providing locks and ensuring that they are in good repair,” says McCarthy, “is a community effort within the school district. It includes upper-level administrators, principals, vice principals and teachers. Everyone must be on the same page as to the security level they’re offering students.”

Locker locks may be physically small but, in terms of the security they offer, they’re large. “Locks are an important school feature that are sometimes overlooked because they’re a lower-value item,” McCarthy says. “But they are not to be overlooked because they keep high-value items safe. It’s not a good thing for a student to have to go home and report that his or her $1,500 lap top was stolen.”

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

Featured

  • S4L Announces 2026 Education Design Showcase Winners

    Spaces4Learning is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2026 Education Design Showcase! Now in its 27th year, the annual awards program honors innovative solutions in planning, design, architecture, and construction across K–12 and higher education.

  • Porter Family Center

    Porter Family Center for Innovation and Academics

    Established in 1999, the Education Design Showcase is a vehicle for showing off innovative — yet practical — solutions in planning, design, architecture, and construction. The Porter Family Center for Innovation and Academics has been recognized with an EDS 2026 Project of Distinction award in the category of New Construction.

  • Architectural Power for the Modern Campus Landscape

    For generations, an outdoor classroom only required a textbook and a patch of grass. Today, not only has the laptop replaced the printed pages, the rise of agile learning has turned campuses into study halls with students listening to lectures and researching topics from quads, gardens, and plazas. The challenge for architects and facility managers is to provide connectivity without cluttering the landscape with visual eyesores or creating safety hazards with extension cords.

  • University of Kansas Breaks Ground on Entrepreneurship Hub

    The University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan., recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new KU Entrepreneurship Hub, according to university news. The Hub is part of the university’s School of Business and will include spaces for experiential learning and programming.