Image made using Canva. Embedded creenshot from the SU Instagram.

A guide to the various ways students can recover lost items at Townsend Harris. Though there are distinct ways to find things, many students say they are either unaware of the above or that they often give up looking.

“Whenever I lose something, I usually just give up looking for it,” said Siddhini Singh, Freshman-Sophomore Class President. “Sometimes I’m lucky and see it outside the cafeteria, but that rarely happens.”

With over 1,300 students entering and exiting the school building each day, someone is bound to lose something. For that reason, schools have long had a “lost and found” system that helps students recover what they misplace.

At Townsend Harris, the “lost and found” has two physical locations and a Student Union run digital announcement system. However, students like Siddhini report that despite the multiple options the school offers, they either aren’t sure where to start looking for their missing items or don’t know which option is best.

According to Assistant Principal of Organization Ellen Fee, items found by students and faculty are sorted and sent to the cafeteria or main office based on their value. Clothes, books, or bags are brought to the front of the cafeteria, and lost electronics and valuable items are received by Ms. Fee’s office.

“I think every adult knows that items of value are in my office, so if any student asks to find a valuable item, [they] direct [the student] to me, but I don’t think that’s very effective,” Ms. Fee told The Classic. Even so, she said these belongings are almost always identified. She said, “If 40 things a month are turned in, about 37 [will be returned] back to their owner.”

The cafeteria’s lost and found has a lower success rate, she said. “Out of 40 items, maybe 10 are returned,” said Ms. Fee.

Senior Kathleen Chen similarly said, “I’m not sure many people even know we have a lost and found. I feel like we need a more structured location for lost items instead of [a table] outside the cafeteria.”

The Student Union does regularly post messages on Instagram from students hoping to recover lost items. The SU even offers a template for an Instagram story post that students can use to advertise their missing things. The template asks for a description of the item and a photo of what it looks like. Students often use the template and share their Instagram contact information, hoping someone will have seen it and will message them about it. One recent post offered a $10 “cash prize” for the return of a missing object.

Sometimes, items don’t end up in the physical lost and found locations or on the SU instagram page at all. 

Sophomore Candice Yang described the system as a “wild goose chase.” 

“I didn’t even know there was an SU lost and found,” Candice said.  She said she believes that it’s difficult to locate lost items as they frequently stay in a teacher’s classroom.