One thousand, one hundred and twenty-nine students. Two bathrooms open during two hours of lunch. These numbers do not add up.
Recently, a bathroom was vandalized by a student, which resulted in the Middletown High School administration’s decision to lock every student bathroom during lunch except the two closest to the cafeteria.
For students who have classes in the freshman wing during lunch, this means walking three quarters of the way across the school to reach a bathroom. Having to take the extra time to walk around the school just to get to a bathroom has many negative effects.
Teachers only have a limited amount of time per day to teach, so they try to take advantage of every moment of it. Since students are out of class for longer periods of time, they miss more instruction than if they only had to walk down the hall.
They are taken out of the classroom environment for longer than needed. Students are unnecessarily forced to miss out on teaching time, especially with the lengthy lines for the stalls.
Walking farther to the bathroom also presents the issue of how long a student should be gone. Most teachers do not question the length of bathroom trips, so with the excuse of having to walk all the way to the cafeteria, some students have the temptation to take advantage of the situation.
This can result in lengthy walks around the school, meeting up with friends for a quick chat and simply wasting away time before going back to class. These can be problems any time a student goes to the bathroom, but with the extra time a student has to make the trip to the cafeteria, the issue is exacerbated.
Another issue deals with emergencies. If students have serious problems and must reach a bathroom in a quick manner, they may not be able to because of the long trip to the cafeteria.
Many students feel strongly that the bathrooms should be reopened during lunch periods. Some even question whether it’s a violation in school regulations and policies.
“I don’t like how they have closed the bathrooms during lunch,” said MHS senior Samantha Yeager. “Some students have classes on the opposite side of the school and it takes a while to get to the only open one.”
MHS SGA President Logan Bramhall and Vice President Sam Ramsey met with MHS Principal Lee Jeffrey to discuss the bathroom closures.
“She’s [Jeffrey] very hesitant about giving full access to the bathrooms because of the past incident of vandalism,” said Ramsey. “She said they would talk to other administration and they might open bathrooms between lunch shifts.”
In order to address the issue of vandalism, “we need to be more proactive than reactive,” said Bramhall. “It’s such a small percentage of the student population” who vandalize and closing most of the bathrooms to everyone does not solve the problem.
Bramhall suggested that the journalism class makes “a PSA video to help crack down on the issue” and Ramsey proposed that “the teachers on cafeteria duty should walk around during shifts” in order to monitor students since “it’s not fair to punish everyone.”
The question of whether it’s against regulations was also raised by Bramhall. “It’s probably against regulation for them to be closed, too,” she said.
Her classmate MHS senior Dylan O’Toole shares the same idea.
“It’s very likely that it’s not something legally allowed in school and with so many kids in this school for there to be only one bathroom open is absurd,” O’Toole said.
He said he believes in certain student rights such as “the ability to use the closest facility to a classroom and not have to go all the way to the cafeteria.
“As students, we do not deserve this and administration should be held accountable,” he said.
Many students are hoping to start a petition and have hundreds of fellow classmates sign in protest, but such actions have yet to happen.
So for now, all 1,129 students continue to use two bathrooms.
