We are writing today to discuss the bathroom situation at PAHS.  While the student body understands that the administration only seeks to end vandalism and keep the bathrooms safe, the measures taken to prevent this have gone too far.  The shutting down of the F wing bathroom and the bathroom checkpoints need to be reversed.  These may act as deterrents to some extent, but their main effect is to generate resentment towards the administration, and to only cause further vandalism in the bathrooms.

Shutting down the F and J wing bathrooms does nothing to stop people from vandalizing bathrooms.  The loss of the bathroom makes a bathroom trip from a class in most of the school  take up to 10 minutes, up from a 3 minute round trip.  Teachers and students alike in the F Wing are not happy with the amount of class that is being missed because of the bathroom closure, and this sentiment is quickly spreading to the J Wing.  The student who vandalized the F Wing bathroom was caught, so there is no further need for it to remain closed.  All students and F Wing teachers should not be punished for the actions of one, who has already been caught and punished.  The loss of two bathrooms also makes the one remaining bathroom too busy, leading to poor sanitation and overcrowding.

The checkpoints outside the J Wing and Cafeteria bathrooms need to be taken down.  There is no benefit to these pass checks.  Hall passes are used to make sure students are allowed to be in the hallway, not as an entry key into the bathroom.  A student should not have to go back to their teacher to get a pass if they are walking past the bathroom, or face questioning just to use one.  There are numerous examples of staff members at the bathroom entrance crossing boundaries.  This includes multiple reports of people having their pockets searched for phones before being allowed to use the bathroom, and students being yelled at to leave when they have been deemed to be in the bathroom for too long.  These examples are all only from the first day this policy has been in effect.  With cameras already in place and sign out sheets in classrooms, there is absolutely no good reason to have these checkpoints.

People across the student body are only becoming angrier at the administration, and these new crackdowns are only making more people talk about damaging the bathrooms in revenge.  The longer this goes on, the worse the situation will likely become.  One possible solution to this issue is to bring back the “No Fly List” policy from last year, where some students would need an escort to use the bathroom.  Another possible solution would be to better position the cameras near the bathroom entrances to see each student who enters and exits.  This way, when the bathroom is vandalized, the security footage can be checked to see a list of possible culprits.  Requiring students to report bathroom damage the second they see it can also reduce the amount of time the vandalization could happen in, reducing the amount of suspects.  Students would be willing to do this because it removes them from the suspect list.  Either one of these solutions, and many others that we have not thought of, are less invasive and forceful then the failing methods that are currently being used. 

A good analogy for this situation is calling the police on a group of kids playing hide and seek. All it does is create a higher stakes game of hide and seek. This principle applies perfectly to this situation. As the authoritarian restraints in bathrooms increases, it just further incentivizes students to continue the trend.  Ending the restrictions will end student’s will to rebel against the bathrooms, and decrease overall vandalism in the long term.

The bathroom policies have to be changed.  Students are saying that they feel like they are being treated like 5 year olds, and that they feel very disrespected by the administration.  This bathroom policy is not the Better New Normal we were promised.  The administration has a duty to ensure we have a safe and healthy environment, and they have failed to do so. 

This petition was written before the assembly on 10/1/21, and does not take it into account.  The opinions in this petition are shared by all signers.  The suggestions for solutions are the ideas of the writers, but we are sure that the rest of the school has many good ideas as well, and they should be given a chance to offer their solutions.