Bad Bathrooms and Terrible Toilets

Have you ever wanted to go to the bathroom in school, but when you get there, the toilets are clogged, there’s pee everywhere, and the paper towel dispenser has been emptied? Sights like these have been becoming alarmingly more common in MS447, that’s for sure. But how have students been reacting to it, and what can be done to fix it? 

Cassius Hartmann, from class 706, says, “The bathrooms usually don’t smell very good, and the 6th grade one has cockroaches.” When asked about how the bathrooms could be improved, he answered “I feel like they just need more maintenance, and maybe add another boys bathroom.”

Just in case you haven't been to the bathroom for the past year, it has become harder to find a place to go in peace. Not only do the bathrooms have the problems that we described above, but they also have clogged sinks, stalls that don’t lock, and students, both in middle and high school, hang around cutting class!  

Shira Scott, from 702, says “A lot of times I see people hanging out in the girls bathroom. They’re mostly talking to each other.” 

These people do stuff ranging from sitting around talking to each other to harassing people trying to use the bathrooms in peace.  A perfect example of these problems is the bathroom adjacent to the science rooms.  The bathroom has giant puddles of pee on the floor that smell the whole room up. There is litter scattered across the floor. The sink barely works at all and the toilet bowls are filled up to the brim with poop. One time, there was even a trash can in one of the toilet stalls. Sadly, this is all true. 

All of this started with a TikTok trend called “Devious Lick,” which was all about stealing stuff from schools, and when this went viral, tons of kids started doing it. Right now, the soap dispenser in the boys' bathroom next to the cafeteria is missing, and who knows where it went? In addition to this, the toilets have been clogged for a long time. So why don’t they just fix them? Well, if the toilet is clogged terribly, then you need to call a plumber. And specialists, like plumbers… are expensive. So, now that you know the depth of the problem (you could almost call it a bathroom emergency), what can we do to fix it?

Fortunately , there are some possible solutions for the toilet problems. There could be a fundraiser to get the money to unclog the toilets. There could also be a petition to get the school to unclog them. However, if we don’t change, someone will just clog the toilet again. So not only do we need to fix the toilets, we need to keep them fixed. If we band together as a school community to get the toilets fixed and keep them working, then we will make our school a better, cleaner place for students.