0
0
Lights flicker, garbage floods the floor, sounds of dripping water echo. You may think this is a pre-zombie apocalypse, but no. This is the NS bathrooms.
The NS bathrooms have become a well known problem across the school. Kids are feeling unsafe using the bathroom, afraid of what they will walk into.
“When I walk in the bathroom and see a bunch of girls talking, I feel so awkward and uncomfortable,” sophomore Rachel Kasperson said. “I feel like I’m intruding on them and feel targeted.”
More than 45 percent of NS students voted that the north bathroom is the worst bathroom in the school.
“I never go in the bathroom by Whipple’s, and there’s a reason,” sophomore Kamron Cox said. “The few times I go in there it’s been bad. The vibes are just off, the bathroom is small, garbage is everywhere, and it just projects bad vibes.”
The north bathroom is not the only bathroom with bad experiences, the west bathroom has had its fair share of problems.
“There was one time I got told there was something going on in the boys bathroom,” teacher Landon Bailey said. “I walk into the bathroom, and there’s just girls underwear on the floor.”
Many students express that the bathrooms are being misused, and being treated like a hangout spot.
“I walk into girls sitting on the counter gossiping, doing their hair and makeup,” Kasperson said. “When I see a ton of people in there, I just walk out and go back to class.”
It’s not just the students who make the bathroom environment feel unsafe, it’s also the structure in general.
“I feel like the cracks in the stalls are really big,” Kasperson said. “The way mirrors are facing the stalls is weird. I feel like I’m being constantly watched.”
Bathroom problems have been going on for years, causing major damage to the school.
“A few years ago the bathrooms were getting absolutely destroyed from a TikTok trend going around,” Bailey said. “It got to the point where we had to shut down the bathrooms for a couple weeks.”
Some students tend to go to the bathroom to escape classes, and get away from the cameras.
“We obviously can’t put cameras in the bathroom,” Bailey said, “having a teacher in there monitoring would just cause more problems.”
NS has created new Hawk rules enforcing better behavior not just for classrooms, but for bathrooms as well.
“I think enforcing the new rules will help change the way people view the bathrooms, and make the bathrooms safer,” Bailey said.
