We’ve all broken or lost something. It happens. Every year, students lose some sort of equipment that is borrowed from the school. When a student does break or lose something, they have to pay for it, these are called obligations. This exists because of pure irresponsibility.

A student can’t be considered for a student parking space if their obligations aren’t paid for. “The most common obligations are lost textbooks and parking fees,” Finance Technician Laura Mclean said. That means every time a student parks in a wrong spot, a ticket will be given and an obligation will be issued.

Seniors have the most obligations. “Seniors won’t pay off their obligations until right before they have to,” Mclean said. That includes the Senior Graduation fee. The $67 price includes all the fees for graduation and Prom. If you don’t pay it, you can’t participate in the ceremony or the party.

“We cleared a lot of obligations last week due to Prom,” said McClean. In order to be eligible for Prom, you have to pay all your dues. Despite this, there are still roughly 400 students that still owe obligation fees as of right now. Other obligation fees come with being in a class. Students in band, orchestra, or guitar, would also have to pay for a broken instrument or other damaged equipment.

These obligation fees wouldn’t be a big problem if students were better at just keeping track of their stuff. Students often think that keeping track of school work is important and that there’s no serious harm in losing it. When you lose something borrowed from the school, your consequences are much more serious than a bad grade. Another common kind of obligation is library books. From kindergarten, students are given late slips when they cannot turn in a library book. If you sign into a computer, a big notification comes up, reminding you that you have an overdue book.

“The library takes care of their obligations and we bill the students,” McClean said. In some cities, if a person doesn’t pay for or return a book that belongs to a public library in a period over 20 days, they can be arrested for robbery.