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| Jerica Fagan is a featured editorialist from Granite Hills' English 4 Composition class taught by Mrs. Jennifer Holly. She thinks the school needs to improve the quality of our bathrooms before it's too late. |
Our bathrooms need to change now!
Jerica Fagan | 3/13/08 | Opinion
s a diabetic, I have to go to the bathroom at least three times during the school day only to end up putting toilet paper on the seat because there are no covers to put between me and god knows what is infested on that seat. When I go wash my hands, I don’t bother to use soap because the dispensers only have a rancid grainy powder. The poor bathroom condition needs to be resolved.
According to multiple girls and boys who use the student bathrooms, they would have to place toilet paper on the seat, straddle the toilet, or just end up suffering the whole day without going at all. This is all because the school neglected to put in toilet seat covers in each stall. Sure, teens are destructive and trash the bathrooms as well as anything else on campus, but it’s still not a good reason to make a student hold it all day until he/she contracts a urinary tract infection. Did I also mention that not supplying the student bathrooms with paper covers is illegal? In bathrooms like McDonalds’, there is a laminated paper with the health department’s seal on it, stating that public bathrooms must supply toilet seat covers for protection. The reason for this law is because of diseases such as Trichomoniasis, which is a sexually transmitted disease that can be passed by damp towels, sex, and toilets.
According to a government website called 4woman.gov, Trichomoniasis, or “trick”, is a bacterial disease labeled as a sexually transmitted disease, but it can be contracted by damp towels, toilet seats, or other damp objects. It can be cured by a drug called metronidazole, but until the treatment is complete, a person who has trick has a higher risk for HIV. If this isn’t reason enough for protectors, then I don’t know what is.
Another problem with the Granite Hills’ bathrooms is the soap. The girls’ bathrooms have grainy rancid powder that leaves residue, while the boys’ bathrooms have nothing! The classrooms currently have hand sanitizers to prevent staff infection, so why don’t the bathrooms? People can get staff infections in bathrooms too. If the school can afford to have hand sanitizers in every classroom, four more for the students’ bathrooms should not be too much to ask. Needless to say, it is really unsanitary for students to not wash their hands after using the bathroom. Is this school really that cheap?
What this school needs to do is stop wasting money on less important things like sports and instead use it to protect students from bacterial diseases. Maybe students will stop destroying the bathrooms if the school gave them the proper protection they need to relieve themselves. If public bathrooms in Porterville Lanes and McDonalds have to provide soap and toilet seat covers, why should Granite Hills High School be an exception? I, for one, do not like holding it or putting toilet paper on the seat in a vain effort to protect myself. Granite Hills High School needs to protect their students and install hand sanitizers and toilet seat covers before someone gets trick, HIV, or God knows what else.
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Name: Felipe
Date & Time: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 11:30 am
Subject: Our bathrooms need to change now! |
Well, I agree with what you are saying. I am one of those people [who uses] the restroom here about twice a day. The boy’s bathroom is disgusting. It’s always filthy dirty. But we don’t need any fancy soap, just some soap to do what we [have to] do and that’s it. Also for the seat covers, the same thing as well. I think we should have more attention towards the bathrooms. I'm a sports guy and just to let you know sports is one of the most important things at any school campus, so leave sports out of this conflict. |
Name: Christopher Cox
Date & Time: Thursday, April 24, 2008 01:10 pm
Subject: Our bathrooms need to change now! |
OK, the situation is a little grim, but sports should be one of the last things to go. Obesity is on the rise after all, and students would not stop trashing bathrooms just because you give them toilet seat covers. I am also almost one hundred percent sure that it does not matter what type of soap there is as long as there is some. So tone it down a little with the rancid grainy powder, there are more worthwhile things to gripe [about]. I for one would be happy with some darn soap, and I think that (except for hand soap) if kids break it, they can go without. It would be stupid to repeatedly replace toilet seat cover dispensers if they are just going to get torn off. |
Name: Caitlin Knight
Date & Time: Thursday, April 03, 2008 03:08 pm
Subject: Our bathrooms need to change now! |
I also believe that the bathrooms should be upgraded for our safety. I mean, no soap?! Ugh, disgusting! [My friends and I] all suffer [from] these horrid rooms. I refuse to use the bathrooms till I get home. The bathrooms here scare me! Anyone can get a serious infection here because nothing is protected. Everything is dirty, unsanitary, and a nightmare for students.
I know that the money for our school gets sent to core classes, like math, English, science, history, etc. Sometimes I question that as well. I think some money should go to protecting the students, and could loosen up on things like sports, but the art/music programs here also need attention as well*getting off track*!
The bathrooms at Granite Hills are a disgrace to bathrooms everywhere! They need to be cleaned; they need to be sanitized; they need at least toilet seat covers and hand sanitizers. I mean, come on administration, why let students suffer the horror of the toilet seat or the sink. Yeah, it may sound silly, but students do fear the GHHS toilet seats. If the school can offer to have hand sanitizers in each room, and have all the phones changed as well, we could at least put some stupid toilet seat covers and hand sanitizers in the bathrooms. Viva la Clean Bathrooms! |
Name: Paul De Boor
Date & Time: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 12:25 pm
Subject: Our bathrooms need to change now! |
The school latrines are as bad as any other public restroom. They need to be improved, but the school is not entirely at fault. Of course, they don't provide seat covers, but what do you think the students will do with them? [Some] of the males will scatter them all over the school covered in something they produced in the latrine and decided to give it to the rest of us as a gift. The toilet paper is scattered all over the male restrooms after brunch, leaving nothing for those who wish to use it for its intended purpose. These same individuals take pride in urinating all over the walls, floor, and ceiling, if they can reach it. Remember that is what we are dealing with.
Let’s not be mistaken. They know how to get into the female restrooms and leave it just like the males. Even if they don't want to go in themselves, they will no doubt send a "friend" in who didn't want to go either. Through bulling and peer pressure, they'll have their way.
If the school just put all the proper equipment in the female latrine, it's sexual discrimination. The school has enough problems, and doesn't need to have law suits against them, especially over something so trivial.
Change needs to be done with the students who enjoy trashing the latrines. We can't put a camera in there, and having someone watch can lead to sexual harassment issues for the school. I think we should have formal charges pressed against them for violating the restrooms. This is the only way to truly be rid of the issue. |
Name: Robert Jones
Date & Time: Monday, March 31, 2008 06:53 pm
Subject: Our bathrooms need to change now! |
I whole-heartedly agree with Jerica on this present issue. I for one used to be under the impression that the bathrooms were kept in poor condition on purpose. I figured the idea was to create as putrid an environment as humanly possible to discourage students from hiding out in the restrooms during school. However, as the years have passed, I am beginning to think that the state of our bathrooms are more so a result of lack of upkeep versus educational purposes. I for one have never seen the inside of the girls bathroom (and even if I have I would never admit it on the school newspaper), but I can say that the conditions in the boys bathrooms are eerily similar to the description that Jerica painted. While I can not vouch for what it is like to have to squat on the toilet seat while urinating I can say that it doesn’t look the least bit appeasing. I often cower at the thought of putting any part of my body within the vicinity of the bottomless pit known as the Granite Hills toilet for fear of some mutated creature popping out and devouring it. That being said the students are not free of charge when it comes to the conditions present in our bathrooms. It is amazing that even after years of practice some kids have still yet to master the art of aiming a certain part of their body when releasing liquid waste into the aforementioned bottomless pit. Of course, I could be totally off base on this and it could be more so a problem of education versus hand you-know-what coordination. Some kids could very well be unaware that you are supposed to aim for the big whole in the middle and not the porcelain ring that encompasses it. This is partly why I think we should have a “Bathroom Education” course instilled into our current academic curriculum. No longer should kids have to unknowingly violate the safety of our restrooms. Either way, whether it be through the students or staff (or both), change must be made. |
Name: Sarah B.
Date & Time: Friday, March 28, 2008 08:58 am
Subject: Our bathrooms need to change now! |
I agree. The bathrooms are not in the best of shape. But even though there are no toilet seat covers we get used to it. Yes we should have them but it’s hard sometimes to restock them during school. The bathrooms are packed almost the entire time school is in session. I'm not saying we need to just suffer and live on. I hate using the restrooms at school. But if you have to go, you have to go, regardless of how horrible the bathroom is. Oh, and the soap! I hate the soap. Half the time the soap is no where to be found. The soap dispensers are usually empty half-way through the day. I realize it's hard to keep the bathrooms clean and supplied the entire school day but we do need soap. One thing I do disagree with in Jerica's editorial is how the school spends its money. The school is not "wasting money" on sports. Students need physical activity. And some that are talented enough can end up playing in college. Some of us can't pay for college and sports are our way there. You cannot say the school is wasting its money on sports. Schools need competition and students need physical activity. That’s that. We deal with things as they come. |
Name: Krystal Wayne
Date & Time: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 02:38 pm
Subject: Our bathrooms need to change now! |
I completely agree with this article. The school bathrooms are completely inappropriate and disgusting. I would agree that there needs to be an immediate change! |
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