Jalissa has four minutes.

Four minutes to navigate through the mass of high school students to get from Ms. Gallegos’ classroom to Ms. Griffis’ classroom.
But first she has to go to the bathroom.
She walks into the 300 hall bathroom to see four people waiting in line and three people just hanging out on their phones. There are three stalls, but one is out of order.

There are two options: wait in line and risk being late for class or go to class and spend five minutes trying to sign in to E-Hall pass — neither option sounds appealing.

Jalissa gives up and just goes to class.
She’s not alone. With restrooms having toilets out of order and only a four-minute break between classes, sometimes it’s easier to just wait — if that’s possible.
However, the problem with the school’s restrooms is not new. There are plans for the bathrooms to be renovated next summer, but for many students, it is not soon enough.

“The condition of the sinks is very poor,” junior Grayson Henson said. “I can’t wash my hands properly because I have to keep one hand on the faucet to keep it running. It has become unsanitary this way.”

While students commonly complain about the restroom sinks, they aren’t the only problem.
“A lot of times I walk into the 600 hall bathroom and there is water all over the floor,” sophomore Jalissa Wheeler said. “I think they should fix the piping for the toilets so flooding wouldn’t happen as much.”

Water on the floor around the toilets is a common issue in the 500 and 600 hall bathrooms. Maintenance workers have had to close those restrooms several times this fall to deal with the problem, which creates another problem since there is only one set of student restrooms for the two hallways upstairs.
The construction project currently underway includes funding for repairing and renovating the restrooms.
“Our plan is to do a cosmetic renovation,” director of operations Matt Fry said. “This will include replacing and modernizing any of the cabinets, tiles, and flooring throughout the school. Also any of the toilets, sinks, and fixtures that need to be replaced will be replaced.”
These changes will be helpful, but part of the problem is simply the age of the building.

Some of the fixtures in the main building (300, 500 and cafeteria restrooms) have been in use since the building opened in 1985, almost 40 years ago, and have never been replaced.

“We have some old soap dispensers that no longer fit the new soap bags in them,” custodian Melissa Kindle said. “So some of the bathrooms don’t have soap because the soap bags won’t fit.”

However, these problems exist even in the newer parts of the building.
“One of the toilets in the 600 hall broke weeks ago,” Mrs. Kindle said. “We put a trash bag over it, but it hasn’t been fixed yet.”
The bathrooms get a lot of use, so some of the disrepair is to be expected.
“It is just the nature of public restrooms,” Principal Kristen Giles said. “When you are running 100 people through a public restroom, it isn’t going to stay well maintained.”

And the student restrooms do get a lot of use.
There are 19 stalls available for girls, and with a female population of approximately 350, there is one restroom stall for every 20 female students.
This is a similar case for the boy’s restroom.
“There are always too many people in there,” senior Christopher Ayers said. “Also people will destroy everything in there. There is so much to fix because people keep breaking things.”

But the problem doesn’t just lie with the age of the facilities or the number of students using them.
Vandalism has taken a toll on the restrooms — the toilets, the walls, the soap dispensers, the mirrors and more.
“It is worth pointing out that some of the major problems stem from vandalism,” Mr. Fry said. “Pieces of walls and counters have been ripped off and shoved into the toilets and urinals. Those things have to be repaired during breaks because the water has to be shut off and the fixtures removed in order to fix them.”
So for now, students will need to take care of the spaces provided until next school year.
“It’s mostly the students that mess with the bathrooms,” junior Owen Braza said. “Students just need to have the common decency to not destroy things.”