The new bathroom protocols at DHS are a few things: widely detested, imperfect, inconvenient. Practically the only responses you will see if you ask around school are either indifference or loathing. Rarely will you see someone excited that they can’t go to the bathroom during the most ideal times–the first five minutes (usually before the real lesson starts) and the last 10 (usually when students are doing independent work). The sister article to this one, written by Isabella Pires about the negatives of the bathroom protocols, will probably mention that. It only ever elicits eye rolls and annoyance when brought up.
However, as unpopular of an opinion as this may seem, maybe we do need some kind of regulation. According to our principal and assistant principals, as mentioned in the assembly, there are students who feel uncomfortable when the bathroom is swarmed by a big group of people, or when people are vaping in stalls. Many don’t care at all, but it’s important that some do, and we should keep that in mind.
There is also the issue of being present in class. You’d have to be clueless not to notice how many kids don’t want to be in school learning–their eyes are very clearly bored, their posture is bored, everything about them is bored. Their habits are extremely predictable. In most cases, they get up to go to the bathroom a lot, and some go for a long time. I would venture to say that half the time, people aren’t going into the actual bathroom, but are instead on a break to walk around the school and waste time because they don’t want to be in class. I think that everyone has done this. Some classes get too grueling or difficult without a short break. Clearly, however, the issue is long bathroom breaks, fights, congregating, and vaping.
I can see where the administration is coming from with the bathroom protocols. There is little they can do to make people want to stop vaping, want to stop leaving class, or want to talk things out instead of hitting one another and pulling clothes and hair. A lot of the issue is on a personal level: how students feel, what they’re doing on their own time, and how they’re acting. Teachers have almost no way of predicting fights, personal issues, or how bored someone will get in their class. There needs to be a limited window for incidents to happen. So looking through that lens, I can see why administrators wanted a solution. I just don’t think this is the solution.
There are some very obvious flaws with the protocols, including one that I already mentioned: the fact that the restricted times are the most convenient ones. Furthermore, tacking on the fact that the bathrooms are inaccessible during passing periods is useless, because there isn’t even enough time to use them that fast. Passing periods are only three minutes, and it can still be hard to get to class in those three, regardless of the fact that DHS staff say it’s not. Also, the times in which you can go are prime teaching and lecturing times. So much for being engaged, as the cell hotels try to achieve (those also don’t work. It’s so easy for a student to keep their phone with them). Now there is nothing deterring students from taking a break for as long as they want when their teacher is teaching. Students will just ask to go in the dead middle of a lesson.
I do think that it’s wonderful (in theory) that staff are forced to follow the bathroom protocols just like us, because they aren’t forced to put their phone in the hotel. The issue I take with this part of the rule, however, is that teachers barely get bathroom breaks as it is. Many are almost constantly teaching, and when they’re not, there is still work to do. I feel very sympathetic for the teachers who hardly had time to go to the bathroom–now the issue is worse.
So if there are this many negative things about the protocols, then in my eyes, we should fix it. It’s not that we don’t need a protocols at all, we just can’t have this one. It’s not useful or pleasant. And a rule such as this encourages further rebellion against it.
It’s nice to say we need another plan, but what should that be?
I think it’s a combination of things. The first is caring more about students. I’ve noticed something that is concerning to me, which is the nearly uncomfortable environment some teachers create in their classes. It’s one thing if students don’t like the subject being taught, but it’s entirely another to be isolated by a teacher in their classroom. Instead of judgment for how a student is acting, attempting understanding would be better instead of writing them off as a “bad kid.” I also think that some teachers create hostile environments with the strictness with which they enforce rules or talk to their kids. They are not setting up places where a student can have a meaningful conversation with them. They are not showing mutual respect. I know this is possible, because I have so many teachers with whom I feel comfortable going up to.
Another piece of the solution for new bathroom protocols would be for those who are high up making these decisions to actually listen to students and teachers. It seems that there is a lack of voices, especially student ones, being represented. Only a minuscule amount of people probably decided on this, seeing as so many of my teachers had no clue what was even going on, and even assured us that they weren’t the ones behind it. The dissatisfaction among students is also telling. Students, it seems, are never truly regarded when it comes to the decisions that affect us the most. I think they most definitely should be: a lot of times, students know what will work best for them. We of course can’t run the school, because then rules wouldn’t matter, but I think we deserve to give input alongside teachers and administrators.
At the end of the day, our current approach to a bathroom policy has been poor, but I think we do have the tools to make a good and necessary one. That truth has been there all along, and it could have been realized if only more voices were listened to.
