High School bathrooms are a core memory in everyone’s lives: maybe good, but often good or bad. They’re often dirty and usually vandalized which can cause an unpleasant time while trying to do your business.
When going to the bathroom you expect a clean, nice place where you’re supposed to do your business, wash your hands, and leave right?
Right?
Well, it’s very different for high school bathrooms. Cleanliness is the main issue, people using the bathroom and not flushing, not cleaning up after themselves, flushing no flushable things down the toilets, and throwing things at the walls and ceilings. Not only is this a struggle for students but also for the janitors who have to clean it up,! Like imagine cleaning up the mess you see in the bathrooms every day, you’d hate it! Our janitors work so hard, and what we are doing is making more work for them. So, it’s important to not put that work on someone else’s back just because you want to.
Numbers really speak words in this case because when 1,012 high school
students aged 14 to 18 were asked how many times they use the restroom, “64% say they visit the facilities just once or twice a day. When asked why they avoid the facility, about 40% cited that it’s usually dirty or smells bad.” . It’s very important to keep restrooms clean because they carry many diseases like Molluscum contagiosum , Hepatitis A, Norovirus, and SARS-CoV-2 and no one wants to get sick in general but all of these sound pretty bad.
Another thing you’ll notice in a high school bathroom is the vandalism. Ours ranges from cute drawings and sayings to absolutely diabolical drawings that would make a nun sprint for her rosary. Artistic expression isn’t limited to the walls, people destroy sinks, toilets, soap dispensers, trash cans, literally everything they see must be destroyed or drawn on. Lee Moskowitz from SmartPass says “Bathroom vandalism in schools goes beyond the surface damage to facilities; it has far-reaching consequences that impact student safety, school finances, and accountability measures.” Which makes complete sense because they have to pay for paint, cleaning supplies, and hiring people to fix or replace things, when they could be paying for an even nicer bathroom or even a fun activity for students to do but instead, they waste it on cleaning up our messes and bathrooms.
You’ve probably had your parents ask you “If everyone else jumped off a bridge would you too?’ Just because other people are vandalizing the bathroom doesn’t mean you should too. Instead, opt for telling a staff-member so that they can take care of it.
Respecting our bathrooms is something no one really thinks about, but when so many people are in there messing around, the messes add up. We should always keep respecting our bathrooms in our mind while using the restroom.
I wanted to get a closer look on the issues we have in our bathrooms from students and staff, so I went into the bathrooms 3/2/2026 to take a look and see what you see on a Monday at Harrison High School, I also interviewed students and staff to see what they had to say, here’s how it went, I asked students “when you go to the bathroom what is one thing you see?” They said they saw a dirty toilet, crowded with little to no stalls open, and smoke from various things. I then wanted to know a usual thing that most people do when they go to the bathroom. I asked, “do you do your business and get out, or do you talk to friends or maybe even walk around?” While a few said they walk around, most of them said they talk to their friends and do their business, and even more said they just go to talk to their friends.
Now I obviously can’t beg for a change and not specify what other people want, so I did just that and asked students “if you could do anything to change the bathrooms what would you do?” A lot of girls said to add mirrors and pink walls, and most people said basic things like Febreze and more stalls which are also needed very much…. But wouldn’t pink walls be sooo nice?!
But to be honest, bathrooms are a huge part of our daily life, and we use them a lot and need them, that’s why we need to keep them clean and usable. No one wants to have skin contact with something that not only looks disgusting but also holds thousands of germs and possibly sicknesses. That’s why I’m writing this article to hopefully get some attention on what the students need to have safe, clean, and presentable looking bathrooms.
