Jordan's Proposed Bathroom Duty Plan

The bathroom is an integral part of many spaces, including schools, but what happens when this vital space is abused? Jordan High School's administration has created plans for a new bathroom plan that hopes to address many of the issues students and staff have reported regarding our facilities. 

The main complaint about the student restrooms from both students and staff is their frequent misuse as spaces for students to meet, skip class, vape, fight, and record videos without supervision. This also leads to overcrowding, which prevents students who need to use the bathrooms from doing so efficiently. This could lead to them being late arriving or returning to class. Another problem that has been reported, though less frequently, is theft and violent behavior within the school bathrooms by other students. These issues have led to many students avoiding using the bathrooms, and they are often closed during the school day to prevent misuse. 

That being said, what is the new proposed plan and how does it address these issues? It would have teachers take on bathroom duty during part of their planning periods one day a week. Bathroom duty would be very similar to the already existing lunch duty, consisting of standing outside their assigned bathroom and checking any students who try to use it for an electronic pass, while turning away and reporting any student caught without one. These monitors would hopefully prevent students from congregating or misusing the bathrooms, while students who want to use the bathroom correctly can do so safely and quickly. These bathroom monitors have also been proposed to act as hall monitors to further discourage skipping. Teachers can currently volunteer to take on hall-monitor duties, but there is no formal system for enforcement. Teachers would also be provided with radios during bathroom duty to better communicate with one another and administration to address issues.

Under the proposed system, students would be required to file an electronic pass to enter the bathroom, even if they have a lanyard or other physical pass. Though this is already the policy for hall passes, there is currently very little enforcement. This rule would further enforce the use of the electronic pass system, which allows administrators to more easily check if students are skipping based on the amount of time since they created the pass.

I talked to an anonymous teacher about the new system, and they expressed a somewhat negative view of the duty plan, stating it has good intentions but will ultimately be ineffective and worsen student-teacher relationships. Another teacher I spoke to expressed annoyance at the situation, stating they did not want to have to take time from their planning period for bathroom duty but believed the plan would be helpful. One student I spoke with said he doesn’t use the restrooms because “students be using the bathrooms in ways they shouldn’t be using them, like vaping.” Another student described the restrooms as “disgusting” and stated Jordan should “stop people wandering the halls” to improve the conditions, as they believe the poor conditions are caused by students skipping in the bathrooms. A third student I talked with described the female restrooms as “stank, rank, and dank” and described unsanitary conditions, such as piled-up menstrual products and a consistent cloud of vape smoke.

Photo by Ruby Gentithes

This supervision schedule is currently only a plan, and official rollout has not yet begun. When the rollout will happen is unclear, though administration hopes to implement it before the start of the next school year.