It’s lunch time, everyone runs to Express West to receive their food, but you turn the other way. As a result of drinking a lot during class, all you can think about is secreting your waste. However, as soon as you open the door to the Middle College High School (MCHS) restroom, you step in grey water, staining your white shoes and making walking uncomfortable for the next two to four hours. You groan as you make your way to the next location to relieve yourself. Unfortunately, this is the case for many boys trying to use the MCHS restroom, as frequent issues of broken roof tiles and clogged urinals haunt those who just want to come in.
California Education code 35292.5 requires K-12 schools to provide working restroom facilities for their students. MCHS abides by that rule by providing their students with access to Santa Ana College’s (SAC’s) Johnson Center Restroom during lunch and providing their own MCHS student-only restroom facilities located near the main office. However, maintenance rules and ownership of the high school student restroom are shared between both schools.
MCHS Principal Scott Werner explains the responsibilities of both schools and what they must do in order to keep the restrooms functioning.
“The building itself is owned by Santa Ana College, the cleaning and maintenance is something that we do. We handle some of the basic maintenance that happens inside the restroom and SAC takes over once the lines go underground … We still work in cooperation with SAC in a number of different work orders,” Werner said.
The constant teamwork results in clean, effective restrooms for students to to rely on in case they ever need to relieve themselves during school hours. However, the male restroom has repeatedly demonstrated to have issues like fallen tiles or flooding that makes many students uncomfortable in using the MCHS restroom.
Junior Daniel Rodriguez illustrates his belief on how often one problem arises after another, whether it be a broken tile or a flood incident.
“I think it’s pretty often, I think at least once a month,” Rodriguez said.
He continues on to explain how incidents like flooding or tears in the ceiling disrupt his schedule and make it difficult to use the restroom during appropriate hours.
“It makes me have to walk extra during lunch and it gets nasty because sometimes, like last week, it was flooded and I didn’t want to go in there, so I just went over to the one in The Johnson Center,” Daniel said.
While the restrooms could still be used, most students have started using others whenever floods, clogs or other issues occur. However, having an MCHS only student restroom is important for many security reasons. For example, many other restrooms provided are shared to SAC students or anyone who passes through the college campus.
MCHS Junior Landon Cullen explains the need for a safe restroom and concerns for the public restrooms shared with SAC and MCHS students.
“Restrooms are meant to be a safe space to do your business; it’s not like The Village bathroom where anyone could walk in. And it could potentially be a worse experience for a student,” Cullen said.
So, what are the possible reasons for the issues in the restroom? One popular reason is vandalism. Cullen explains a situation of a previous vandalism work in the MCHS restroom.
“Personally, I have encountered a situation where I went into the stall and saw one of those flyers they put up in the bathroom in the toilet,” Cullen said.
Werner acknowledges the ways vandalism has affected the public restrooms ability to do its job, but also adds on the fact that some issues may just result from normal plumbing issues that can be fixed through maintenance.
“I think we have a few students that may have gone in there and had way too much fun or took advantage of a situation and decided to vandalize. Those are things that, no matter how good our kids are, we’re still gonna have some kids that make poor choices. Sometimes flooding is because there’s a toilet that backs up, because of that small vandalism … Sometimes the toilet backs up and it’s nobody’s fault, we just need a little bit of extra maintenance, those things happen,” Werner said.
Cullen advises many different possible solutions to prevent future vandalism in school restrooms, emphasizing on the need for strict rules that punish bad behavior.
“For the school to solve this problem in the long-term, they should consider: 1. Trying to create more respect for the restroom 2. Encourage the students to follow the motto ‘if you see something say something’ 3. Clear punishments if the student violates the rules of the restroom, even if the school can’t enforce it, having the threat of punishment for bad behavior discourages it,” Cullen said.
The public restroom is required to be provided by the school district, but it should not be undermined just because it’s a free resource. MCHS is a school of many great minds, and such excellence can be demonstrated in the way we treat our environment. So, let’s wipe our worries clean, go on a roll of respecting public property, and wash our worries of a bad restroom down the drain as we continue to respect the school and all of its resources.
