The Sullivan High School girl’s bathroom was locked during passing period and class time for a number of weeks in November and April. This raised issues for many students that had to use the bathrooms for emergencies and brought up other concerns pertaining to the bathroom. Students shared their thoughts on the issues with the bathrooms.
The bathrooms were locked during class time at some points throughout the school year but particularly in November and April. Administration at Sullivan said it is a precautionary and safety measure to make sure students have the required hallway passes and not misusing bathroom stalls.
Chad Thomas, former Sullivan principal, gave safety reasons why the bathroom was locked.
“The reason why we lock the bathroom during class time is because we want to make sure that the students that are in the hallways have a pass,” Thomas said. “We’ve also had some issues with some students doing inappropriate things in the bathroom like vaping. Some students also ditch class by hiding in the bathroom stalls and this is another reason why we started locking the bathroom.”
Elisa Fatoni, Sullivan sophomore, shared her ideas about the girls bathroom lock down.
“I don’t really see the point of locking the restrooms while they’re not in use,” Fatoni remarked. “I’ve had to hunt down security in order to get the bathroom unlocked for me. It’s annoying because I end up missing more class time than anticipated. They’re not even consistent with locking them anyways.”
Sullivan has since stopped locking the bathrooms; however, this raised other issues for Fatoni.
“Having free & easily accessible sanitary pads & tampons should be a requirement in schools. The box in our bathrooms always seems to be empty and a day doesn’t go by where someone doesn’t ask me for a pad or a tampon. I wish our school did a better job at keeping the box consistently stocked with pads and tampons for students who need it.”
On the other hand, Oluwadabira Alonge, Sullvan senior, commented on the positives of the bathroom.
“I think the cleaners do a good job honestly, cleaning a bathroom used daily by hundreds of kids is a hard task,” Alonge said.
Alonge added more to what she thinks about having a pass while going to the bathroom.
“Having to ask for permission to use the bathroom is a dumb policy. The passes are a good idea, but not trusting a student doesn’t mean you can deny them their right to the bathroom.”
After talking about the bathroom, it also had Alonge thinking about the cleanliness of the bathroom.
“I think the students should take more responsibility when using the bathroom and be conscious of the fact that others will use it after you, and someone will clean after you’re done.”
