Student bathrooms are sometimes closed, causing them to be crowded with loitering students like flies around garbage on a hot day. According to Principal Jeff Walker, the bathrooms are closing mainly because of the students’ negligence. 

“Usually vandalism is the main reason we have to close down the bathrooms. However, smoking and vaping is the second main reason for the bathrooms being shut down,” Walker said. 

The bathrooms being closed means that other people besides the students are affected by this. Teachers, believe it or not, are affected due to the overcrowding that vaping causes. For Social Studies teacher Patrick Gebhard, whose room shares a wall with the boys’ bathroom, this causes disruption in his classes on a daily basis.

“I’m probably the staff member that checks in there the most just because my classroom is up against the bathrooms. So I can hear when there is a big crowd in there,” Gebhard said. “During passing periods, I’ll pop in and try to clear it out cause there’s usually like 10-20 huddled together. It gets so crowded that people who actually have to use the bathroom, can’t even get in and do it.”

Due to its location, students flock to the Upper Commons bathrooms. People think it’s easier to get away with causing problems due to dim lighting and the bathrooms being open to all of the buildings during passing periods. Courtney LaChance-Denton, who teaches Theatre, is right across from the Upper Commons bathrooms. So, Denton has had her fair share of incidents with those bathrooms being the main cause of disturbance in the school.

“I think it just because A, B, and C building all meet up and it then becomes a central place for students to meet up with their friends and because there is not as much presence of authority,” Denton said.

If the vandalizing, vaping, and fighting continues throughout the year, then bathrooms, like the ones in the Upper Commons, will continue to be shut down.