PVHS Bathroom Closures Spark New Discussion

Around the campus of Pleasant Valley High School, school bathrooms are being vandalized everyday, which is an issue of public safety and common cleanliness. A debate is going around about whether or not our school bathrooms should be monitored by school officials and staff or just to be closed off completely.

Now, in the wise words of KC Hanson, they said, “Dude, what are we going to do, pee our pants?” Which is a very adequate answer. What are students going to do? Where will they go if the bathrooms are shut down? Or, would students rather have a PV staff member guarding the doors?

While these are all options, none should be necessary, and needed to be put into effect. The only solution that will help this school, is to put a stop to vandalism. The Viking students at PVHS are, in fact, in high school, which should mean that they are trustworthy and mature young adults. However, based on the actions and choices that these teenagers have made, that expectation seems to be too high, even if it is reasonable. Students seem to be nowhere near reaching this expectation. By vandalizing bathrooms, they are destroying our principals’s trust in them, as well as government property.

The students, we know, won’t quit any time soon, which forces a decision to be made. Do we close down the bathrooms or do we have them monitored?

A vandalized school is not the kind of school students want to learn and certainly cannot thrive in. If students have the need to use the restroom, they should be allowed to go. But if they truly want this trust; to earn it. To have this trust we need to show it. This brings us to the question: why do students vandalize our bathrooms?

“Because people think it’s cool, it’s not, but it is funny,” says Damian Nova. Is vandalizing bathrooms cool? When you go to the mall, or to a fancy restaurant and use the restroom, do you think it’s cool that the toilet seat has marks of derogatory images plastered everywhere? Do you think that it’s cool that when you wash your hands in the sink and look at yourself in the mirror, you see hurtful comments written? Do you think it’s cool when you walk into the bathroom, a normal place, is smothered with hurtful and harmful statements? Do you think that that’s cool? To the PVHS students: the next time you walk into a stall with a Sharpie, just think about all of the people you will end up hurting. Remember, it only takes one bad thing to lead to another.

Are kids so in need of attention that they would vandalize public bathrooms, making the environment harmful and disgusting for all students? What can we do to make kids feel attended? Having classes such as Academic Success helps classmates get extra help in certain areas. Pleasant Valley High School even offers a class labeled as Math Lab, which is taught by varsity football coach, Mark Cooley.

Cooley was also asked about this vandalism issue. If school bathrooms should be closed or monitored he replied with, “hold it like everyone else. Let’s have the kids just do the right thing.” So Vikings, let’s do the right thing.