Twice a year—once before winter break and once at the end of the year—Westridge’s maintenance crew sets up three tables piled high with water bottles, sweatshirts, and other lost and found items hoping to be reunited with their owners. For every item that finds its way home, a stockpile of other random items remains homeless wanderers.

How effective is the lost and found system in returning missing items to their owners? Lorretta Choi, lead teacher of the Child Educational Center (Westridge’s after school program), said that most of the students who come to her looking for a lost item ultimately find it. Others believe that the lost and found system needs some work. “Sometimes [the bins] are overfilled,” said Cynthia Velasquez, Assistant to Facilities. “They are so overfilled that we’ll pull [items out] and put them in another bin so that the girls know where to go and look for their things.”

A lack of communication between students and teachers doesn’t help the confusion surrounding the lost and found process. When students ask Candace Riecke, Main Office Assistant, for help with a lost item, she gives students a slip of paper with key information, like the locations of the bins. The slip also states that if a custodian finds an item on campus after school hours, it will go to the Facilities Building. However, Cynthia Velasquez admitted that she wasn’t aware that Facilities hosted the items.

“You want students to take responsibility for their belongings,” said Ms. V., Lower and Middle School Dean of Student Life. “We state in the handbook and remind parents [to] put names on everything: their clothes, their lunch boxes, their water bottles, all their stuff.”