By Shelly Stock / Entertainment editor
For female students, using the restroom is anything but relieving. The state of our stalls not only causes health concerns, but poorly represents our student body as a whole.
The first issue is the constant lack of handwashing materials. At least one week out of every month, one of our bathrooms is out of paper towel or soap. Some sinks, like those in the upstairs bathroom, have water pressure so low that a singular trickle of water comes out. In these conditions, handwashing is almost impossible to do. This leads to the spread of germs, making it far easier for students to get sick. Sickness means absence from school, causing a loss of educational time because just one bathroom didn’t have what was needed.
The next issue is the state of the stalls. In almost every stall, there is blood on the walls or pee on the floor. Both have also been smeared on stall handles and toilet seats. While urine is technically sterile, it’s still nasty. These conditions discourage many students from using the bathroom at all or force them to take extra time out of their restroom break to hunt for a stall that’s usable. This leads to unhealthy habits and increased risk of developing a urinary tract infection, commonly referred to as a UTI. Holding urine gives bacteria present time to multiply in the urinary tract and adds pressure, weakening the bladder muscles. Weakened muscles in the bladder can affect how easy it is to use the restroom in the future, since those muscles no longer have the strength to rid the body completely of its urine. All of these issues stem from the state of our restrooms.
Additionally, the floors don’t seem to be cleaned as often, or thoroughly, as they should be. For example, the bathroom in the girl’s locker room has had the exact same sequin on the floor for nearly two years. The cafeteria bathroom has also had a build up of white substances in the corner of the stalls for as long as I can remember. Almost every bathroom also ends up with chip bags and other food wrappers sprawled across the floor after every lunch, due to those who choose to spend their lunches in the restrooms. While that’s an issue to focus on in a different article, cleaning up after yourself should be the bare minimum.
For those visiting our school, these conditions directly represent our teams, our student body and our district. It shows a lack of care about our facilities as a whole and leaves a bad impression on those who enter the building. Students and janitorial staff should both help each other out and pay more attention to these issues. While students can’t refill the paper towel dispensers themselves, janitorial staff can’t stop students from making messes in the stalls. It takes both groups working together to make our bathrooms cleaner and safer for student use.
