The majority of South’s students are not elevator riders, but most have seen peers with crutches or teachers with carts filled with books using keys to unlock the large, cream-colored doors in order to avoid struggling up and down the stairs. This year, South has decided to ditch the ancient keys and allow elevator riders to take the elevator with the effortless push of a button.

“[We got rid of the keys] because we always had a shortage of the elevator keys, and people in general would lose them and it was just a hassle,” Office Secretary Linda Catlett said.

The ridding of the elevator keys means that the school elevators now operate as those in most other offices or buildings would work: students and teachers have only to press the up or down buttons.

Allowing the elevators to be used without keys also makes the trips to different floors easier for teachers who have to carry carts filled with books and papers to different rooms in the building

School nurses Danielle Shockley and Liz Ruffson were formerly in charge of checking out elevator keys to teachers and students they found unable to take the stairs.

“[Using the keys] seems very old, it’s very old school,” Shockley said.

Discontinuing the use of elevator keys seems to be seen as a positive change for the majority of the faculty, and indeed this change does seem to have many benefits.

“[It’s better to have no keys] because it’s preparing students for real world situations. If you go anywhere else, your elevator is a non-key elevator. It’s just more normal to me to have a non-key elevator, plus it’s safer because if there’s an emergency you can leave faster,” Ruffson said.

So far the new method of using the elevator sans-keys has been running smoothly, and will continue to do so as long as students do not mistreat the elevator or ride it simply because they are lazy. Students who take advantage of the fact that the elevator no longer requires keys will be reprimanded as seen fit by the school faculty.