Bathrooms are necessary for day-to-day life. They are a government requirement in almost every building, especially schools. Unfortunately, people take advantage of it. 

Lake Shore’s bathroom problems have increased within the past six months. People have stopped using them for their intended purposes. Instead, they use them for other reasons. People crowd the bathrooms and use stalls for anything other than using the bathroom. It seems like no one can use the bathroom without waiting in a long line. 

Last year at Lake Shore, the bathrooms were open all of the time. This year, it seems like the bathrooms are constantly crowded or locked due to people not using the bathroom properly.

Smoking and vaping have caused some of the bathrooms to be heavily monitored or closed. This needs to be changed.

The science bathroom, right outside Room 136, is where most people go during passing time. The reason for this is, that some girls are uncomfortable with hall monitors standing in the cafeteria bathroom. 

Alyssa Hinkle, says, “I think it’s necessary to a certain extent, but when they’re just in there all the time when we are minding our business, and they are just invading our privacy.”

A lot of students dislike when the hall monitors constantly blame them for vaping when that’s not the case. Most students catch up with their friends while waiting to use the restroom.

Having the bathrooms packed is very inconvenient for everyone, especially when the school decides to close one of the bathrooms. Lake Shore already has the office bathrooms and auditorium bathrooms closed, so that leaves four bathrooms available for people to use. 

Hinkle states, “I think it’s just very inconsiderate and very rude because they’re not caring about the other people who need to use the bathroom.” 

Students don’t realize that crowding in the bathrooms could cause everyone to be late for class. Crowding causes the hall monitors to think that the students are vaping in the bathrooms. This could cause students to get searched, even if they are just waiting to go to the bathroom.

A possible solution to this problem would be to just close the bathrooms during passing periods, but that would inconvenience the staff and students of Lake Shore. 

Hinkle said, “No, I do not believe we should do that. I think we should be able to use the bathroom whenever we want.”

Besides closing the bathrooms, there isn’t a solution to this issue besides heavy monitoring of the bathrooms. Unfortunately, this could cause people to feel uncomfortable with using the restrooms. 

This could also just make the crowding worse. That is what happened with the cafeteria bathroom. People liked using that bathroom due to the privacy wall, but since it was being heavily monitored, students felt uncomfortable going in there.

Hinkle said, “I think they need to be more lenient because it gets hectic when the hall monitors come in there and everyone gets accused. It just starts arguments, and it feels like the hall monitors don’t care about personal space.”

If the hall monitors were more lenient, people would return to the cafeteria bathrooms, which would cause other bathrooms to be less crowded. This would make everyone on time for class and make sure everyone got a chance to use the restroom.

Being ushered out of the bathroom because a hall monitor is accusing someone of vaping is very nerve-racking. It causes students to have to wait and use class time to use the restroom, which disrupts their learning. 

Bathrooms are very important, but people like to take advantage of them. The bathrooms at Lake Shore need to be decently monitored, but not to the point where people are forced to hold their bladder due to the bathrooms being heavily monitored.