Bathroom Crisis Follow-Up
January 7, 2022
As we know, the school has been in modified lockdown regularly. The halls have been monitored, escorts have been called for, students have had their passes revoked, eventually resulting in the lockdown of the restrooms. All restrooms being closed had caused a genuine issue, as of when and where students could find a restroom in use. The biggest problem was not just the restrooms being shut down, but the humiliation of the entire situation. The only restrooms in use had been the nurse’s restroom, which only has 2 restrooms. Around 1,500 kids are expected to make that work. Teachers took whole class “fieldtrips” to the restroom, so they could manually unlock it with the key attached to their chain.
The restrooms had been locked and students had absolutely no access to them when they needed them. A select number of students have made bad decisions but every single student in the building had to pay the price for it. Being able to use the restroom and WALK OURSELVES to the restroom should never be looked at as a privilege; it should be our right. While discussing our restroom usage the teachers and staff have been heard describing the issue as a matter of “privilege” seeming quite ridiculous. Students feel extremely disrespected by the decisions made by administration.
By shutting down the restrooms, the simple action of going to the restroom had never been harder. The truth of the matter is that yes, some students are making bad decisions, but they will continue to do so. Students of this age know the difference between right and wrong. They know what they are doing is wrong and continue to do it. The reality of the situation is that if the students are still doing it NOW, they do not intend to stop. With that in mind, shutting the restrooms has only caused an inconvenience rather than a solution. Students want their independence back; they want to have the ability to think and act for themselves. Make decisions for themselves, like any human being should be able to do.
Students ask for the restrooms to open, and as of now remain open. Students recommend instead of taking community assets away, they think we should all work together to get to the heart of the issue, which is finding out who is doing it, who is misusing things and breaking things, who is causing the actual problems. The sooner we go deep into the issue we will start to get answers and how we can stop this from happening further. Like having conversations with individual students. Students do not want to see whole school punishments for things that not everyone has done. The students at Lakes High School are not against the administration, they would like to help resolve this issue, in any way they can, we are a team in this, and we need to work together to make Lakes High School better.
Shante • Jan 20, 2022 at 12:42 pm
Agree! Has school administration changed this or is this still the way the bathroom situation is working because I had no idea it was this bad and I am a parent of a Lakes student