Editor’s Note: This article was written for Mosaic, an independent journalism training program for high school students who report and photograph stories under the guidance of professional journalists.
When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go. But for some high school students, that’s becoming an increasing challenge, as administrators try to prevent restrooms from being refuges for vaping, drug use, littering and loitering.
Del Mar High School in San Jose has about 1,300 students, but during class time for most of the school year it had only three bathrooms available: one designated for girls with two stalls, one for boys, and one that’s gender-neutral.
Because of long lines at recess and during breaks, most students ask permission to use bathrooms during class time. School policy dictates that students with a bathroom pass must get there, take care of business and be back in five minutes.
Recently a boys bathroom that was closed since Dec. 3 has been opened during break and lunch but remains closed during class. In the girls bathroom, the school repaired three toilets, to make five — instead of just two — stalls available. Another girls bathroom is open only during lunch and breaks.
Diego Lopez, a senior at Del Mar, said crowds in the bathrooms make it difficult to follow the five-minute policy, but some teachers are not swayed. “They will enforce it a lot and will call the office,” he said. He added that the condition of the facilities doesn’t help, with broken locks on the stalls, bent doors and vaping devices lying in the urinals.
“It’s just horrible in general,” he said.
Like Del Mar, Willow Glen High School in San Jose has a five-minute policy, said junior Anahi Maldonado. When nature calls, it’s “very inconvenient, because you have to walk all the way across the school to get [to a bathroom] and we have a limit of one person at a time, and the five-minute limit.”
The issue isn’t unique to local schools. A recent national survey of high school students found that 70% of respondents reported “unpleasant experiences” in bathrooms. Their complaints: bad odors, crowding, clogged or unflushed toilets, and stall doors that didn’t close properly. Upon encountering such conditions, more than half said they left without using the restroom.
Local administrators say there are no simple solutions, as staff face an ongoing struggle to maintain facilities. Del Mar custodial plant manager James Ortiz said some bathrooms have been shut down because of “an underlying issue of throwing stuff” into the plumbing.
Ortiz said a clean-out of bathroom sewer lines in November yielded 28 vaping devices, several pencils, a phone charger and a calculator.
Along with plumbing issues, administrators continue to try to control the age-old problem of students hanging out in bathrooms for purposes other than their intended use.
At James Logan High School in Fremont, senior Savannah Graham described the challenge of a bathroom schedule limited to certain areas and times. The policy was implemented Jan. 1, she said, because of “students smoking weed … people ditching class” and lingering in the bathrooms.
Students now have to rush around campus to find an open facility. Some, she added, choose to just wait until the school day is over.
The policy “doesn’t stop people who do smoke in bathrooms… It just hinders the rest of us,” Graham said.
Del Mar Principal Diana Nguyen said the administration implemented some restrictions because “students need to be in class.” At the same time, she said, there are plans to repair and reopen some bathrooms, if funding and vendors are available. She said the school is also researching filters that would catch extraneous objects being flushed into the pipes.
“I think the only thing that we can do is work together as a school community in order to keep the space clean and safe,” she said. “Not vaping and hanging out and doing whatever.”
Ortiz, the Del Mar custodial manager, said a lot of progress could be made with a little consideration. “The students are forgetting that this is their second home,” he said.
Graham acknowledged that students share responsibility for the situation. “We have a right to use the bathroom,” she said. “But at the same time, students have to learn” to not abuse the right.
Sophia Urias is a senior at Del Mar High School in San Jose.