Students have faced locked school bathrooms throughout the school year. There has been talk about people vandalizing the bathrooms, but there is more to it than just that.
“The girls’ bathrooms haven’t really been an issue; they just forget to unlock the doors in the morning,” campus supervisor Paul Sobbe said. “They lock the bathroom doors every night when they lock up the school, and they just forget in the morning sometimes. Then we’ll communicate that to each other and someone will go unlock it.”
While vandalization has occurred in girls restrooms as well, Sobbe said it occurred more in the boys restrooms.
“Over the past few years, there has been a rise in vandalizing and trashing the bathrooms, more in the boys restrooms than the girls,” Sobbe said.
Sobbe said the boys bathrooms are a big issue.
“In the boys bathroom, there have been a couple fights where they’ve broken things,” Sobbe said. “There’s been some graffiti, and the back one has a plumbing issue right now, so that’s why that’s locked. But then the one upstairs has had a work order to fix for over three months because some students tore off one of the doors.”
Assistant principal Kevin Kooi said the administrative team has been trying their best to handle the issues, but it’s difficult to know who the vandals are, as there are no cameras in the bathroom.
“We’ve had conversations with a number of groups about how they should be using the restrooms,” Kooi said. “If students hear or see things, they have to report it, and I think that’s part of the maturity process and taking pride in your school.”
Kooi said the administrative team has had many conversations with certain groups about how they should be using the restrooms.
“I haven’t seen anything happening in the bathrooms, but I’ve seen the results. I think students do this because they don’t have respect for other people and they are immature,” freshman Matthew Sharp said. “People need to grow up.”
