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Student's efforts mean kids get lockers Debates, medical reports convince Eagle Point board By VICKI GUARINO EAGLE POINT -- A heavy weight has been lifted -- literally -- from the back of a high school sophomore. And from the backs of all other Eagle Point High students. The school will restore student lockers after a two-year absence, giving students an alternative to toting heavy book packs all day. Sophomore Kia Kostman can take much of the credit. She has spent the better part of the school year exploring events that led to the removal of school lockers, weighing through the continuing debate about the need for book storage, and researching options. She led a committee of students, school staff and community members through locker debates, studied medical reports on the effects of heavy backpacks on young spines, wrote and collated surveys. All of it was a lot more work than she expected when she stepped up last fall and insisted that the school do something to resolve its locker controversy. The dispute now appears resolved. The school board has agreed to lend the school $91,000 for new corridor lockers as well as replacements for locker room lockers that failed to hold up. Board members acted Wednesday largely on Kia's word. She presented information supporting the need for lockers, student and staff preferences for lockers and cost estimates. "She did a great job," said school board Chairwoman Cheryl Stout. Stout said the loan is a common financing method for the district, which allots money to each of its eight schools based largely on enrollment. School staff, students, parents and local residents are responsible for deciding how the money is spent through site council deliberations. Around the district, large projects -- often computer and technology initiatives -- are handled through district loans that give the schools several years to pay off the debt without interest. The district is lending $300,000 for planned gym expansion, Stout noted, so a loan for the lockers seemed to be the fairest alternative. "We have eight sites," Stout said, "and some of them are in a lot worse shape facility-wise than the high school." Student lockers were removed, school officials say, because of several problems including contraband storage, mechanical failure and high upkeep costs. Although the school site council approved the action, the complaints began not long after the last bunch of lockers was hauled away. Last spring tempers rose to a point where some parents called for the dismissal of district Superintendent Ted Adams. Administrators had offered to give the issue another look when Kia stepped up. At the time, Kia wanted lockers replaced. But the more she listened to the argument, the more certain she became that getting rid of lockers had been the right move. Other schools, she learned, had dumped lockers successfully for reasons similar to those in Eagle Point. Ultimately, Kia decided that she wanted the school to buy duplicate texts so that students would have books at home and books in school. But that option, she learned, would be far too expensive. So Kia, students, school staff, the site council, and now the school board, fell back to the locker option. "I told the board how important it was for all of us," Kia said, "not just students now, but in the future. "I was very happy by the way they responded to me. I feel like they really listened." Lockers should be in place when students return to school in the fall, or possibly a few weeks later. That leaves Kia uncertain about her next project. "I don't know what's going to come up next. I'll do whatever needs to be done, I guess." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA