Between the smells, the noise, and overall lack of cleanliness, school bathrooms are dreadful enough. However, add extensive lines, being late to class, and numerous “out of order” stalls and the bathrooms become a whole lot worse. UC High must fix the consistent issues with the bathrooms.

   The whole November ordeal began when the East 200 building boys and girls bathrooms were closed periodically and then for an entire week, with no explanation given to the students. On the doors were notes saying “Bathrooms Closed Today, Go to 400 Building — Mr. V.” Those notes were left by UC High Vice Principal Alex Villalobos, who also had an explanation about the situation. Villalobos said, “The reason why the [East 200 building] bathrooms were closed down originally was because a circuit had blown and there were no lights in there. So we closed down those bathrooms due to that safety concern.” This is completely understandable; however, the bathrooms remained closed after the issue was fixed. Villalobos explained that after the electrical issue was fixed, those bathrooms were closed because it was much easier to supervise the bathrooms with fewer bathrooms open. The reason for the needed supervision is to deal with the problem of students vaping in the bathrooms.

    With only two girls and then only one boys bathroom being open, there was bound to be a line at any time of the day; the lines extended out of the bathrooms during lunch. When these lines occur, it causes students to miss precious minutes of class time and makes numerous students late to their classes. “I’m late to class all the time, because every time I try to go to the bathroom, there are like ten guys in line waiting to go too,” said Junior Joshua “JJ” Jones. Freshman Suzannah Cole also faced situations where these lines caused her to be late and miss a significant amount of class. She exclaimed, “I shouldn’t be waiting 20 minutes in order to go to the bathroom!” The mere fact that the administration keeps multiple bathrooms closed, despite these tremendous lines, forces students to miss class time to use the restroom. All this in order for it to be “easier for security to monitor the vaping issue.” Absurd. 

   When the bathrooms are closed, not only are there 50 percent of the school’s bathrooms open, but there are minimal working facilities within those bathrooms. “At least two of the stalls in the 400 building bathroom are ‘out of order,’ not to mention the fact that the bathrooms are overall unsanitary. In situations where multiple stalls are not working, all bathrooms on campus should be open for student use,” stated Senior Sarina Salcedo. She couldn’t be more right– all the bathrooms need to be opened for students to utilize them. The bathrooms were built to be used. 

   Principal Jeff Olivero said, “We have got all kinds of stuff broken around here; it is a backlog of work orders to fix things. The district prioritises what things at what schools need to be fixed and they fix them in order of priority. We are in line with all the 180 schools to get things fixed.” Yet another understandable argument from the administration; Despite that, it still doesn’t explain why they couldn’t have chosen to close a different set of bathrooms. Why not open the bathroom with the most usable stalls. The answer, again, was that the 400 building bathrooms are easier to supervise.

   An additional reason the admin says that they are closing the bathrooms is because of the school’s loss of the program “McAllister,” the rehabilitation program the school used to provide if a student were to be caught ingesting drugs, alcohol, or other illegal substances. According to Vice Principal Jo McGlin, the program is hoping to be brought back sometime in December 2019 or Early 2020. Even so, is this reason significant enough to close numerous bathrooms? 

   “I don’t think everyone should be punished for the mistakes of a select few of the students. While vaping is an issue at our school, I don’t think restricting the entire student body’s use of the bathrooms is fair,” said Senior Amir Abdul-Alim.  He is saying what is on everyone’s mind. This is an unfair punishment. It is not everyone’s fault, and there is no guarantee that the closures will stop the vaping. These students are probably addicted, and if so, they are going to find a way to vape. McGlin said it herself: “Having the bathrooms shut down is helping with the number of students who are caught vaping… We aren’t catching as many students vaping, but we have to look at it from all sides. Are kids just becoming more clever? Are they finding better ways to hide it? Well with vaping, unfortunately, it’s hard to tell.” So this whole situation has persisted not because students have stopped vaping. It just means fewer are getting caught. Whether they find new places to do it, start doing it in classrooms, or learn to be sneakier, the issue will carry on despite the bathrooms being closed. 

      McGlin said that closing the bathrooms allows them to monitor the other bathrooms very easily. This is the main reason as to why the bathrooms are usually closed. Yet with all this thorough monitoring, the administration still claims to not have noticed the “issues and lines” that persisted for weeks. “No one has complained so that’s another thing. If someone were to have said ‘Hey, there aren’t enough bathroom stalls’ then maybe we would have taken other measures,” stated Villalobos. If they were looking hard enough to see people vaping, the lines should be more than obviously noticeable. None of the students are happy with the bathrooms being closed. Who would be?

    Sophomore Riley Rae was particularly upset saying, “It’s so annoying. They give us five minutes a passing period but if the bathrooms are closed how can I make it to class on time? When I tell my teachers I’m late to class because there was a line in the bathroom, they don’t believe me. People just say ‘Oh then go during class’ but it isn’t that easy; some of my teachers only allow students to use the bathroom a limited number of times per semester. When my body needs to go, it needs to go.” This has become the reality for many UC High students when trying to go to the bathroom. Students have enough stress; they don’t need the additional stress of thinking “When am I going to be able to go to the bathroom next? Is my teacher going to be mad at me? What am I going to do if I get another tardy?”

   So again, creating a difficult and stressful situation for the entire student body in the hopes that students will quit vaping is a ridiculous way to handle the situation. All bathrooms on campus should remain open in order to reduce the number of tardies students are receiving, the amount of class time they are missing, and simply the amount of difficulty each student must now go through in order to simply use the restroom.