While students crowd two to a locker in Lincoln’s upper floors, 60 lockers in the basement stand empty, even as Lincoln’s enrollment has ballooned.

It’s for safety, says vice principal Cherie Kinnersley. The hallway has no classrooms with little presence of staff.

“Someone could be getting bullied down there, fights, anything else that goes on in a little hallway.” The administration wants students “where we have eyes,” she says.

Security officer Sean Caples says lockers 931 to 999 had not been used for at least three years before his arrival in 2005. At that time, Lincoln’s enrollment had dropped below 1,300, and those lockers were not needed.

A decade later is a different story. Kinnersley says the school has just enough lockers to double up every student at most.

“I had to go up to Freshman Hall before registration and physically count whether we had enough lockers,” she says. If we have another (freshman) class like this year’s,” there could be a problem.

Caples agrees. He believes the basement lockers will be used next year if attendance grows at the same rate, but it is ultimately the decision of administrators. Most likely only seniors would be assigned these lockers.

Caples acknowledges the administration’s concerns that the hall is often empty and poorly lit, but “outside of that, there’s not much of a problem.”

Only the Lincoln rebuild, slated for completion in 2020, will truly provide relief to current locker crowding. The need is particularly prevalent at Lincoln, Kinnersley says, because most students do not have their cars nearby and need storage space for books and athletic gear.

Current students can only dream of what future Cardinals will enjoy. In addition to more classrooms and hallway space, Kinnersley believes the new Lincoln will have many more lockers, “giving lots of room.”