Nobody likes using public bathrooms in general. Sadly, the worst bathrooms are the bathrooms at the school. Students avoid the school bathrooms as much as possible due to the lack of cleanliness, sanitation, and resources provided in the bathrooms. Bathroom complaints are commonly made by students. The bathroom conditions could definitely be worse than they are, but considering that our school is ranked number two in the state, students feel that they deserve better school bathrooms.

Out of the several bathrooms in the school, only half of them are supplied with paper towels. While hand dryers are installed in the bathrooms as eco-friendly replacements for paper towels, bathrooms still have the paper towel dispensers too; they just aren’t stocked. Not having paper towels in all of the bathrooms can be problematic. Though the hand dryers were installed with good intentions, they can’t do everything that paper towels do.

Not having paper towels in all of the bathrooms may not seem like a big deal but being stuck on the toilet without toilet paper is.“Out of all my years at the school, I’ve run into many dilemmas where I’ve had to use the bathroom but there isn’t any toilet paper on the roll. I’ve actually had other students ask me to pass them toilet paper to their stall which can be kind of awkward,” senior Gabi Menconi said.

For about a month, one of the girl’s bathrooms between the english and math hallways was actually missing a stall door and another toilet was out of service, leaving only one stall available for students in the whole bathroom. In addition, many of the bathrooms on the main floor tend to having leaking toilets that don’t just leak from the handle when you flush it, but leave the floor coated in grimey toilet water.

“Last year when I first came to the school I was shocked by how much better my middle school’s bathrooms were. There is literally never any toilet paper or paper towels. Using the bathroom at school is frustrating for me because the bathrooms are so understocked. Last year, one of the bathrooms I always used would always have wet floors and leaking toilets; it was so gross that I had to hold my pants up at the bottom so they wouldn’t get wet and dirty from it, ” sophomore Madison Linn said.

Even teachers are aware of the bathroom issues. A teacher who wished to remain anonymous stood up for their students and was able to get a missing stall door replaced in a bathroom.

Math teacher Suzanne Pykosh has also become aware of the issues after hearing students complain. “Out of all of my years teaching at the school, I have never used a student bathroom because we have nice staff bathrooms, but I always hear my students complain to each other about the conditions,” said Pykosh.

Students like Junior Mason Kravitz are hopeful that the future school renovations will cover the bathroom issues. “Even though I will be graduating next year, I still hope the bathrooms will be part of the 2019 renovations because the current bathrooms we have are very outdated. Some of the bathroom doors are even attached on the wrong way so you can’t even close some of them.” Kravitz said.

Amy Weintraub

Staff Writer