For over two weeks at the beginning of the school year, a major hallway on the first floor was closed in order to finish new bathrooms that had been under construction over the summer. This hall closure also included a closure of one of the school’s main stairwells, one of four in the building that goes to all three floors, and the main entrance and exit for many students.

These inconveniences at the beginning of the year raised my expectations for the new first floor bathrooms, as I thought that closing these essential areas for students meant the new bathrooms would be top-tier replacements for the older ones.

However, when the new bathrooms opened to students, I was severely disappointed. The most noticeable difference between old and new is the new bathrooms not being specifically determined by gender. Instead, there are multiple separate, smaller bathrooms that open to a row of sinks in the hallway.

The first issue with the new bathrooms starts the second a student tries to enter a stall. Since the new bathrooms are not traditional gender-split bathrooms with connected stalls, each door has a lock that indicates whether someone is using that specific room. However, these locks are not 100% effective, as I and other students have had the unfortunate experience of opening a ‘vacant’ stall when it was, in fact, occupied.

Once a student manages to successfully enter a vacant stall, they are then entrapped in a tiny space. It is close to impossible to comfortably fit in one stall when standing, let alone with a backpack on. Adding on, the doors to the bathroom open inward, causing students to have to contort themselves to enter and exit. These new doors are also heavier than a typical stall door, adding yet another inconvenience to students who are weighed down by backpacks and likely in a rush.

The sinks for these new bathrooms are positioned in the hallway, creating somewhat of an awkward scenario for those trying to do their business and anyone who happens to be walking by. While I can see how the intention might have been for students to have less space to skip class and loiter, these private bathrooms do the opposite. While the individual stalls are too small to accommodate multiple students, the handicap restrooms on either side have become hosts to students skipping class or wandering the halls.

I have seen groups of students leave the handicap stalls multiple times a day since the new bathrooms have opened, creating extreme inconvenience for those actually in need of a larger space. There is already a limited number of handicapped stalls in our school, and students who take them up in order to skip class are creating yet another hurdle for students with special needs.

While the new bathrooms might not be what I or other students hoped for, they have remained extremely clean and well-maintained. Updates to the building are always appreciated, but hopefully, in the future, MCPS will utilize more effective designs to properly fix infrastructure issues.