Closed High School Restrooms Affect Student Comfort

Public school restroom conditions have been a major health and safety concern for years. However, a recent development has led to even more chaos as school officials in some urban districts, including the Boston area, have begun closing the restrooms during the school day in an attempt to prevent unauthorized vaping and vandalism on campus, The Boston Globe reports. Perpetuated by TikTok trends such as the infamous ‘Devious Licks,’ which sparked outrage,  suspensions, and expulsions across the nation last fall, schools are finding it easier to restrict restroom access than repair damaged restroom fixtures.

The locked restrooms have forced countless students to cross campus seeking a restroom for relief, holding their bladders all day long, or desperately waiting for a stall to open near them. According to Forbes, the average American high school has about 850 students. With many of these campuses closing all but two or three restrooms, it makes sense why this decision has become a problem for many students, parents, and teachers alike.  

“I understand that there are safety concerns, but the whole school shouldn’t have basic human rights taken away,” said Nevaeh Lopez, 16, a student at Holyoke High School in Massachusetts who started an online petition to push back against bathroom closures at her school this spring. 

In Worcester, Massachusetts, when student leaders raised concerns about locked restrooms during a presentation to the School Committee, then-Superintendent Maureen Binienda defended the practice. “There have been some serious injuries, serious fights, drugs in bathrooms, so the reason they get locked is for school safety,” she said. School officials say these problems are in line with a recent uptick of behavioral issues among students returning to class after two years of virtual schooling and social disruption.   

Facility managers, who must contend with the damage students leave in restrooms, are seeking a return to an open-restroom policy but with the stipulation that students receive strict and definitive punishments for their actions.