![Reaching out. Christopher Lesh, student at Central Catholic High School, serves ice cream during the event on March 2, 2025, at the Portland waterfront. Central Catholic was just one of the schools that sent student volunteers out to cook, prepare, dish, and serve food. Interact club’s co-president Rachel Gerber, junior, plated the food during the event. “I like how direct the contact is,” Gerber said. “You’re there [and] you’re just doing something good. It’s simple, it’s easy, you can feel good about it.”](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/interact-1-edited-1200x744.jpg)
![At the bottom of the third inning, the Lions are still scoreless. Rowe stands at home plate, preparing to bat, while Vandenbrink stands off to the side as the next batter up. Despite having the bases loaded, the team was unable to score any runs. “It’s just the beginning of the season. We’re just going to be playing out best by June, [and] that’s where champions are,” Rowe said.](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_3077-1200x900.jpg)
After two years of expectation, the school implemented a new lock system for the doors this school year. The technology of the new locks is intended to enhance the security of classrooms.
As a faculty member, Jan Dickinson, English teacher, has experienced the effects of the new policy.
“They had promised those for two years,” Dickinson said. “I’m assuming there was some difficulty getting them installed.”
There are some problems when it comes to unlocking classroom doors at the start of the day, as well as classroom doors randomly locking.
“Several teachers, myself included, have had some issues [with the locks]. For instance, this week every morning, I’ve had to press the button to unlock it instead of holding the key fob up against it,” Dickinson said.
David Bogert, math teacher, is also getting used to the new system.
“There’s a significant delay sometimes before it happens and I have to try for 20 to 30 seconds to get it to work,” Bogert said.
The new locks are specially programmed so that one keyfob can lock all the rooms in the school at once. This means that if an emergency were to occur, the doors would lock efficiently
These locks have been around since the beginning of the year, but it took time to get them implemented. The locks were specially programmed for the school which led to the wait.
“I was impressed with one person being able to hit the button and lock every door in the school,” Bogert said. “Since there hasn’t been an emergency, [I don’t] think it has had an active impact.”
No emergencies have yet to happen when the locks are in use. With drills, the locks have seemed to work as intended. As the school year progresses, teachers are ready to see how these locks work and see if the bugs in the system can be resolved.
