The boys bathrooms have been a big problem this year at Park High, with overcrowding due to closure from vandalism and students vaping in the stalls instead of using the toilet. For people who actually need to use the bathroom this can be difficult, especially when one bathroom is closed. This leads to kids having to leave class or be tardy just to use the bathroom.
The bathroom vandals are very disrespectful and immature. The school already has a hard time hiring and keeping janitors, and vandalism to the bathrooms makes their jobs harder and causes lots of inconvenience to them and the other students.
A similar vandalism situation happened in the boys locker room earlier this year and shows that this disrespectful behavior is not an isolated incident. Male teachers have been stepping up their efforts to monitor both the bathrooms between class periods. This could be an effective deterrent, but also causes lots of inconvenience for them. The time they are taking to monitor the bathroom could be used to prep for their next classes.
There are many things that can be done to improve this situation such as upperclassmen leading by example and calling out their primarily underclassmen peers who are vandalizing and vaping in the bathroom and taking time out of everyone’s day. If you are not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Enforcement and policing the bathroom can only go so far. It will take a culture shift to really make a change. Bathrooms are places that shouldn’t have vandalism on the floors, walls, and stalls but be clean and not to be disrespected by vapers and vandals.