Almost every student at Wilde Lake uses the student bathrooms at least once a day, some even multiple times a day. What these students use the bathroom for, however, varies. The bathrooms are used for their intended purposes only some of the time. Often, they are used for vaping, skipping class, and organizing fights between students.
It is not uncommon for students to use nicotine products, most commonly vapes, in the bathrooms. The bathroom is a closed-off space that traps the vapor, creating a chemical fog. The vapor contains countless hard-to-pronounce chemicals and even metals like lead and nickel. Not only do these devices cause irreversible damage to the underdeveloped lungs of the high school students who use them, but they are also harmful to students who are indirectly inhaling them through secondhand smoke.
The school’s response to this issue has been padlocking most of the student bathrooms. You have most likely experienced pacing around the building looking for an open bathroom, and once you finally find one, it’s a crowded mess. Junior student Ciel Wolfe claims that the time he spends trying to find an open bathroom is “about 4 minutes because I have to walk around the different floors.” According to teachers, staff have been given a “schedule” for which bathrooms are open at which periods in the past years. However, when I asked about it at the front office, I was informed that there is no schedule this year, meaning that the locking is random. This essentially leaves students with no other option than to guess which bathrooms will be open at any given time.
Locking the bathrooms is not a solution, and it often makes the issue worse. As I’ve stated, when only one or two bathrooms are open in the entire school, dozens of students are forced to crowd into the same space. When asked if he feels unsafe or anxious when the bathroom is crowded, Ciel says, “Yes. It is very uncomfortable seeing a bunch of people gathering in the bathroom, and I end up leaving.” This doesn’t stop students from vaping; it adds a cloud of toxic fumes on top of the crowd and the mess. The interviewed student also stated that the vapor does annoy him when asked. Recently, however, administrators have begun standing outside the open bathrooms, which seems to have made vaping less common.
When asked if he has personally experienced a negative interaction in the bathrooms, Ciel says, “There is a lack of locks. Sometimes when I go to use the bathroom, people bang on the stall and shout.”
Along with vaping, there is also vandalism in the bathrooms. The most common forms of vandalism seen in student bathrooms are graffiti and property damage. The graffiti is often vulgar and inappropriate, and it is also quite expensive to clean up. While graffiti may not directly inconvenience students, it can still have negative psychological effects on those who view it, such as increased stress levels and feelings of distrust or fear.
Property damage, on the other hand, causes direct inconvenience and frustration for students who want to use the bathrooms. Usually, most bathrooms are missing soap and paper towel dispensers. The flushes on many toilets and urinals are nonfunctional, and many sinks are clogged. I have personally witnessed students breaking these fixtures in the bathrooms. Obviously, using a bathroom without a flusher, soap, or paper towels is a major inconvenience for students. The school does replace items like broken paper towel dispensers from time to time, but they are often broken again shortly afterward. However, while I was writing this article, one of the boys’ bathrooms had a paper towel dispenser placed outside the bathroom in the hallway. This seems like a good solution, as the hallways have cameras, meaning students can no longer damage the dispenser without being caught.
The final issue, which is less prevalent but just as serious, is fighting. Fights happen in schools all the time. Most of the time, they are dealt with by administrators and are quickly resolved. Most fights happen in classrooms and hallways. I have not heard of many fights happening in the bathrooms at Wilde Lake; however, other schools struggle with fights being organized and carried out in bathrooms. To prevent this from becoming an issue at our school, several solutions are possible. The school could encourage students to resolve disputes without fighting in general. To specifically prevent fights in the bathrooms, staff could use a sign-in sheet for students using the restroom and remain in close proximity to bathrooms, as fights are usually loud and could be heard down the hallway, if not throughout the building. If fights are met with more serious disciplinary consequences, it may also discourage students from participating in them. Fighting, as well as strategies to prevent it, is a deeper subject deserving of its own separate article.
I asked Ciel what he thinks the school should do to fix the many problems in the bathrooms. He responded, “Open all bathrooms. Because now, when I go to the bathroom, there are more kids and fewer bathrooms. It makes it extremely uncomfortable to use the bathroom when there are just groups of kids inside.”
In conclusion, while the school has taken steps to address the issues in student bathrooms, the problems are far from resolved. The school should use counseling and understanding to approach these issues professionally and work toward effective solutions. Students also have a responsibility to respect school property and one another in order to prevent issues such as bathroom locking and fights.
