By Jasmine Whittemore, Staff Writer

September 24, 2024

ROCKLAND- On August 28, 2024, new Rockland High Principal Cheryl Schipper decided to lock most of the school's bathroom doors during lunch periods.

In previous school years, there were issues with students skipping lunches and spending the entire time in the bathrooms. Then, there needed to be more staff to be available to check all the bathrooms in the school.

“Last year there were students who would congregate in the bathrooms and that's creating an unsafe environment. If something goes wrong or somebody gets hurt or there's a fight and all of the available staff is teaching a class or in the cafeteria that's not a good setup for us,” said Ms.  Schipper.

Ms. Schipper and the other administrators created a plan to keep the cafe bathrooms open but lock the rest of the school restrooms.

Students are unhappy with this because they have classes upstairs, and if they need to use the restroom during the one-and-a-half-hour period, they have to go downstairs, taking up their class time.

Due to there only being one bathroom open during these hours, there are very long lines since people coming from the whole school are coming to use them at this time.

“It's unnecessary and bothering me, when I'm in class and I need to go to the bathroom it takes me even longer. When you finally get down there there's a line of people going out the door, adding more time.” said freshman Karlee Purdham.

School administrators understand it's an inconvenience but stand by the decision.

“I don't like it because it's a longer route, I hope it will change,” said freshman Mackenzie Cookson.

Students hope that the problem can be solved, and teachers do as well. The new solution needs to be suitable for everyone.

“Once we get through the cycle a couple of times and take a look at things we might be able to tweak it a little bit and open up the bathrooms,” said Ms. Schipper.