During Flex Time on November 13, robotics teacher Will Miner stood at the front of his classroom, ready to discuss what he felt to be an issue of great importance. Behind him on his room’s flat panel screen sat the opening slide of a Google Slides presentation that he would be delivering during this session. In orange lettering on a stark white background read the words “Restroom Etiquette,” followed by a quote attributed to Miner himself: “A guide that shouldn’t have to exist but does.”
Miner’s presentation is loaded with definitions of essential vocabulary words such as “restroom,” “trash can,” “lounge,” and “capacity,” all of which he argues are essential for understanding how to use this space correctly, something he believes that several Davie students struggle with. Considering the state of the various restrooms on campus, his assessment of students is unsurprising.
The bathrooms at Davie have been the victims of an epidemic of vandalism. The floors are covered in paper towels, food has been flushed down toilets, and mysterious substances cover the floors, the walls, and the insides of stalls.
As a result of this repeated vandalism, many restrooms around the school have been closed since October of this year. While numerous issues are contributing to the destruction of property, toilet plumbing is a main concern for the Davie High administration. When substances other than human waste and toilet tissue are flushed, clogging occurs and entire toilets must be replaced. While sometimes the culprit is paper towels (which are not intended to be flushed), another common contributor to clogging is the flushing of vapes.
These restroom restrictions are affecting all students on campus, though some wonder if there might not be one specific group who is to blame. For junior Jackson Barrett, the culprits are clear, but the situation itself is unsurprising.
“I think that it’s definitely the freshmen,” Barrett shares. “And I don’t want to just hate on them or whatever, but I definitely think that they’re the problem because they’ve never had this much freedom, and you give it to them and just abuse it.”
Others believe the issue to go beyond the freshmen, however. Junior Isaiah Beaty argues the blame lies with “all grade levels collectively, realistically.” Jeff McCandless, a Freshman Academy science teacher, echoes this view. From his observations, this mistreatment of the bathrooms is not limited to the actions of the newest additions to Davie.
“Overall, students have had a very negative response across the board that I’ve had in my class,” McCandless said. “I think the people [whose] behavior it’s trying to target is not something that the students in my class, in particular this semester, would be the ones doing.”
According to McCandless, some may see this closing of commodes as a big interruption in their educational success, especially since many students now have to walk to the other end of the hallway to use the restroom or even another floor.
“People that want to go to the bathroom and get back, it’s an added 10 to 20 seconds to their trip,” McCandless says. “The trivial difference is the people that know they want to go the farthest distance [around the school].”
Unsurprisingly, the bathroom closures have been unpopular among students, leading some to wonder whether this is the correct solution. History teacher Zachary Wood, who sat in on the meeting that decided the bathroom closures, has been similarly critical of the policy despite recognizing that there is a problem.
“I think that bathroom closures are necessary, to an extent, to try to send a message that the bathroom is not for a hangout place, roughhousing, or vandalism, and unfortunately, it hurts the student body,” Wood says. “I think the best option wouldn’t be to do a disservice to the majority of the student body who is doing what they’re supposed to do in the bathroom.”
When asked to weigh in on this situation, a number of teachers have shared that bathrooms could open back up if people tell their friends to stop ruining the bathrooms or if they decide to report anything they see in the bathroom that isn’t right.
In a recent meeting of the school’s guiding coalition (a team of administrators and teachers), the decision was made to adjust which bathrooms are open on each floor. On the first and third floors, both men’s and women’s bathrooms closest to Tower C will be opened, then on the second floor, the same will be true for the bathrooms closest to Tower B. For many students this may not be an ideal fix, still having to walk to find an open bathroom, but some argue it is an improvement. The continued hope from staff is that the amount of vandalism will decrease and all bathrooms will be opened.
