As the new school year starts, the implementation of new bathroom policies has concerned some students. Unlike last year’s policy of locking the bathrooms so that custodians can clean messes left by students, bathroom policies this year focus more on prevention. The clearest change was the removal of doors from the entrance to the bathrooms for both male and female students. Sophomore Ryan Day believes that this will help to prevent students from misbehaving.

“I think that less [misconduct] will happen because it has become much more difficult to do it discreetly,” Day said. “It is harder to get away with things now.”

Another change that was recently implemented was the policy of not being able to use the bathroom during the first or last ten minutes of class. Supposedly, this was implemented to limit students’ ability to skip class. Many students object to this change.

“Ten minutes is a very long time,” senior Jo Jadhav said. “Those periods of time are when students have the downtime to go use the bathroom. Forcing students to only go during that time means they will miss valuable class time. I see five minutes as being much more realistic.”

Day also believes this change is not beneficial.

“I think it is [silly], they say that they want to clear out the hallways during class time, but the one person at a time rule fixed that anyway,” Day said.

Besides these changes, staff members have also been monitoring students and enforcing rules consistently. Commonly during passing periods, students may find an administrator enforcing the three students per bathroom limit. In other cases, an administrator may walk in and out of bathrooms to ensure students are behaving.

Some students question whether any good has come from tightening the restrictions on bathroom usage.

“Bathroom vandalism was going down in the last few months of school, so I do not see the need for it,” Jadhav said.

Despite some negative reception to the new bathroom policies, there are still those that believe that something good will come out of it.

“The old system was also very frustrating,” Jadhav said. “I [believe] that was due in part to custodial staffing issues, so more custodians could be helpful. The best system to me would be what we currently have but without the waiting period.”