Editor’s Note: Administration, maintenance and custodial staff members responded immediately when ENO reported restroom issues mentioned in this editorial. The newspaper staff encourages students to report any restroom or other building issues needing repair or cleaning to a teacher or administrator.

After the vandalism of school restrooms with the #DeviousLick TikTok trend and other “inappropriate behaviors” occurred, the administration installed doors in the restroom entrances and locked them in November. The restrooms have remained closed since.  Only one set per core class section remains open. Students also can still use the main restrooms by the cafeteria.

The administration must open all of the restrooms.

Keeping the majority of restrooms locked takes away from instructional time due to confusion and long lines. If students do not know which restroom is open, as this sometimes changes and does not have clear signage, students must check, walking up and down hallways to find an open restroom. Once they find one, a large chance exists that students find a line before they can even use the facilities. This process takes time away from instruction. Closed restrooms can also cause students to be late to class.

In addition, only having one restroom open per part of the school leads to the rooms dirtying faster, further increasing lines and discomfort for students. The custodians work hard to keep the restrooms clean, but having limited restrooms inevitably leads to more use and increases the chances of a plumbing accident or dirtiness. Many of the unlocked restrooms will have one or two stalls out of order due to this fact. The lines for the restrooms are already long, and only having one or two useable stalls per restroom lengthens the time away from class even more.

The school also continues to see vandalism in the restrooms. While the motivation of students who vandalize is unclear, opening up closed restrooms could be an option. Many of the stalls have remained out of order over the course of weeks and months due to various bathroom utilities needing replacements. The girls restroom in the social studies hallway is currently missing a toilet seat and a working soap dispenser. A replacement has been ordered for the soap dispenser, but delivery takes time. One of the stalls had a deep red nail polish painted on the wall. While the nail polish is now cleaned, it could have easily been mistaken for blood due to its position. These conditions are inconvenient to students in social studies courses and could be fixed by simply opening up more restrooms. Closing the restrooms was meant to be for closer monitoring of bathroom conditions and student behavior, but the vandalism has not stopped — and much of it has gone unnoticed for extended periods of time.

Those that need to use the restroom account for some of the crowding, but some students use the restrooms to skip class or hang out with friends. This can create anxiety for students that actually need to use the restroom. Having fewer restrooms doesn’t stop students from “inappropriate behaviors,” regardless of the amount of monitoring – it only consolidates those students to fewer spaces, causing inconveniences for students that want to get in and get out of the restroom.

With more than 3,000 students attending Prosper High School, all restrooms in the school building and one in each Learning Cottage are needed. In a poll from senior Alyssa Clark’s news article about the installation of the restroom doors, 79% of students said they disagree with the decision to close the restrooms. Only 4% agreed that the restrooms should be closed.

The administration needs to listen to the needs of their students and open the restrooms.