Bathroom Blues: A Student Response to Bathroom Monitoring in School
This article was originally written by Holy Heart students Leila Mccrate and Sophie Whalen.
If you go to Holy Heart and you’ve asked to leave class at any point this semester since returning from online school, you’ve probably noticed some changes. Vaping is not a new phenomenon by any means, but it’s never something that I saw drastic action taken against until this semester. If you’re not up to date on the situation, recently there have been teachers stationed outside the washrooms during class time to prevent students from hanging out in the bathrooms. They have also closed the second floor girls bathroom and, at one point, the girls fourth floor bathroom. While it’s understandable that the administration doesn’t want students crowding the bathroom and skipping class, we couldn’t help but wonder: is this the best way to solve this issue? This week, we asked the students of Holy Heart to give us their opinions and this is what they told us:
“I think that teacher monitoring is okay, however closing whole bathrooms to avoid the problem is a horrible solution and hinders students learning” — Grade 11, She/Her
“Due to the overcrowding and constant monitoring by teachers, I don’t feel comfortable using the washroom at school”’ — Grade 11, She/Her
“Students are going to vape either way, and forcing other students to find a different bathroom during class is disrupting our learning as sometimes we are forced to go to the opposite side of the school and then to a different floor to find a bathroom. The closing of some of the bathrooms is just making bathrooms more crowded; which is resulting in waiting even longer for a bathroom and missing even more class” — Grade 11
“The bathroom monitoring is hurting student’s mental health. If you need to get out of class, whatever it may be, to use the washroom, to take a quick mental break, it’s now monitored, and you’re stressed the whole time because what if someone else is waiting on you. The teachers need more mental health education and less getting upset that students need to take breaks from their class when guidance appointments are inaccessible” — Grade 11, He/Him
“No, we have to go to different floors to use the washrooms meaning more time out of class”
“It doesn’t stop anyone from vaping but it does stop people from hanging out in there”
“There are only two gender neutral bathrooms and both are on the second floor”
“It’s kinda creepy, kinda uncomfortable. I think that there are always people that are going to be chilling in the bathroom trying to get out of class and people are always going to be nervous about that, but having teachers outside the bathroom and being worried about them walking in while you’re trying to pee is not a solution”
While there seems to be a general acknowledgement that teachers are just trying to do their best to keep students in class and not intentionally making students feel stressed, students also felt it was an invasion of privacy. Multiple students who have gone to administration about what is going on said they were told to come up with a list of solutions, so we did and here are some of the responses we got.
“I think there should be a room in the school where you can go if you need a break other than the bathrooms, because guidance counselor meetings take a long time to schedule” — Grade 11 She/Her
“The bathroom monitoring is hurting student’s mental health. If you need to get out of class, whatever it may be, to use the washroom, to take a quick mental break, it’s now monitored, and you’re stressed the whole time because what if someone else is waiting on you. The teachers need more mental health education and less getting upset that students need to take breaks from their class when guidance appointments are inaccessible” — Grade 11, He/Him
However, some students did think that the bathroom monitoring was an effective solution, or at least something that we should try out:
“It doesn’t stop anyone from vaping but it does stop people from hanging out in there”
“Personally, I think it should be tried just to get people to stop hanging out in the bathrooms”
It seems that both sides have strong opinions, but the focus shouldn’t be placing blame, but collaborating together to make Holy Heart a safer and more positive environment. Legitimate education about addiction, or counseling from our dedicated guidance counselors, would most likely be a far more effective solution to student vaping than closing bathrooms. There is a massive student body struggling with nicotine addiction, and more students might be persuaded to stop vaping in the bathrooms if there was proper education about the dangers of vaping.
Bathrooms are supposed to be a private space, and trying to intrude on that is an invasion of privacy. If the administration were willing to collaborate with the student body on issues that affect our community here at Holy Heart, students would be interested in sharing their opinions, as we’ve seen from the responses we received. Bashing students for eating in the washroom and calling it disgusting creates a judgmental environment, and does not help solve the problem. Students who struggle with mental illness are not an inconvenience, and if students are resorting to hanging out in the bathrooms when they need a break, that is a larger issue than just “students skipping class.”
We believe if students and the administration got together to come up with a solution and could empathize with each other, we could come up with something that benefits both students and teachers.
