Are bathrooms a danger to students? MCPS has enforced a new policy on bathroom doors. As described in an MCPS announcement, “Latches are being installed on exterior restroom doors in secondary schools to ensure doors remain open.” This is meant to counteract drug use in the bathrooms, but it is more harmful than helpful to students.
In the Muslim religion, some women wear hijabs for modesty and only other women may see their hair. Girls who wear hijabs often used school bathrooms to fix their hijabs or hair, but now with the doors open this is not possible.
“There have been complaints at my school, specifically from girls with hijabs, about how they can’t adjust their hijabs in the bathrooms anymore without having to go into a stall. Some people don’t even feel comfortable going to the bathroom at all, knowing that people could be walking by watching,” Richard Montgomery High School sophomore Naomi Kiawu said.
John F. Kennedy High School has been dealing with problems with overdoses in the school bathrooms and the school has reacted accordingly. “Since the overdoses, our bathrooms don’t even have doors anymore, but honestly, I like the idea because it’s a way to prevent smoking in the bathrooms and the method has worked,” Kennedy junior Ciara Chambergo said.
The bathroom door policy has faced lots of criticism from high school students all over Montgomery County who feel their right to privacy has been threatened, but many agree that it has lowered the amount of smoking in the bathrooms at school.
“I have noticed less vaping in the bathrooms and less people meeting in the stalls, but kids are just vaping and vandalizing elsewhere now. I feel like our safety is threatened because there have been gun incidents at my school and I thought if I got caught in the halls, the bathrooms would be a safe place since you can bolt the doors, but not anymore,” Richard Montgomery junior Grace Wade said.
Kennedy High School responded to students’ criticism by putting back the doors. Smoking had decreased and they believed the issue was solved. “A few days later, a student overdosed in the bathroom with a door that had just been reinstalled. Now 80% of the bathrooms are closed and can’t be used. There’s only three open bathrooms in the whole school,” Chambergo said.
While the possibility of a student overdosing in the bathroom is real, it is not enough reason to take away the privacy of thousands of high school students and open doors is not a guarantee that that will not happen. “Keeping the doors open doesn’t stop anything. Girls on their periods usually check the back of their pants in the mirrors, but with the doors opened I’ve noticed guys looking in and staring. It’s violating and uncomfortable,” Wade said.
Drug usage at school is an issue and while open bathroom doors seem to prevent it, kids can still smoke in the stalls or other areas of school. There is always a way around these policies. Schools should address the root cause, teen drug use, rather than target one part of the issue at the expense of all students’ comfort and safety.
“Drug use is hard to stop, but schools could put up some signs about the negative effects of vaping. There’s lots of anti-vape organizations so they should have an assembly about the dangers of vaping, especially as a teenager,” Wade said.
Written by Madeline Springer of Richard Montgomery High School