A public restroom or bathroom.

These two similar terms are a significant part of a school’s architecture. They allow students to relieve themselves and maintain proper hygiene. Because of this, they must be maintained and respected. 

Of these two points, being maintained is not a problem. Our janitorial staff do an exemplary job at keeping up with maintenance by cleaning up after students, which should not have to occur, and making sure the bathrooms have working appliances, but the respect side of things from some of the student body is in question.

“Bathrooms aren’t just bathrooms anymore,” one anonymous source said. “There’s always a group of kids in the big stall doing ‘not bathroom things.’ Most of the time it’s vaping or gossiping. Honestly it makes me feel anxious trying to go to the bathroom with a group of people laughing at everything they hear. I’ve actually had an experience where a group of people got mad at me for using the big stall to go to the bathroom, because it’s where most of their activities happen.”

This experience is not a singular or completely unique one; multiple students have had similar problems with others  not giving complete respect when occupying the bathroom. Multiple examples of this can be seen in students’ recollections of what occurred while they were using the restroom. 

“I feel that some of the students of this school use the bathroom for the wrong purposes like vaping,” another anonymous source said. “With some of the students mistreating it like breaking it, leaving trash everywhere, and putting things in the toilets, urinals, and sinks.” 

There are many ways to fix the primary problem. One way the school is helping to fix the problem is by shutting down certain bathrooms to show students what can occur when they do certain things that are not acceptable, as well as make it easier to monitor the restrooms. This way of fixing the problem shows just how much the school cares about the students and the quality of the facilities. The school’s help with the problem is great, but for it to completely work the students messing with the restrooms need to put in the effort of respecting them. The violators need to take proper action, just as other students have.

“I think that the students could stop vaping in the bathrooms [in order] to stop only one bathroom being open at a time,” junior Preston Parker said. “They could also stop grouping in the bathrooms as that can lead to them becoming rowdy, breaking things, and leaving trash everywhere. This could lead to cleaner bathrooms and less stress over which bathroom is open.”