Gear Storage/Organization for Classroom

Hello!

I’m a HS art teacher who has been teaching photography for the past 2 years. I’m in desperate need for storage suggestions!!

The previous teacher really didn’t have a storage method for equipment. I actually found 3 cameras that were deemed “missing” in the back room within other storage bags.

I’ve pretty much transferred the curriculum from “roam around the hs with a pass class” to I think a pretty well rounded photography experience. At least I hope. My next task is storage solutions.

Overall we have 20 Canon Rebel t7/t5s (not great I know, but good starters for students to learn the basics). Roughly same amount of kit 18-55mm and 70-300mm lens.

Last year I was able to find a large filing cabinet and started to use that. Top drawer is camera bodies, middle is lens, and bottom is additional equipment (cleaning cloths, reflectors, remotes, flashes, etc.). Other things are scattered around like tripods, SD Cards are near my desk, etc. I use smaller clear bins inside the cabinet to keep things semi organized. It’s okay.

Couple Cons:
- Kids don’t put the lens caps back on the camera bodies and lens. This is my biggest pet peeve. I would love to be able to see the bodies at least when they’re put away to make sure the lens caps are on.
- One drawer can only be opened at once, causes a huge bottleneck
- The drawers are deep and i’m worried the lens or bodies will get damaged with a careless student dropping them in.

Anyhow, I would love something different for storage.

Maybe a modular storage that I could see the camera bodies with and have them labeled with the camera numbers? I can’t find much online, besides maybe student mailboxes that I rip apart and re-build over the summer. I’m open to other suggestions, too!!! Thanks!!