Everyone uses the bathroom. From the day we are born to the day we die. So,they are extremely significant in EVERYONE’S life. What you do in the bathroom is nobody’s concern, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else and it can continue to be used for its purpose. Vaping isn’t harming the effectiveness of a bathroom, but going and closing them is.
Before vaping, it was cigarettes; the constant tobacco scent lurking and lingering on the clothes of everyone who visited the bathroom. Now, it’s e-cigarettes, fruity and packed with just about any flavor you can imagine; certainly, vaping isn’t a good habit but compared to smoking cigarettes it leaves less of a negative impact on its surroundings. Instead, the bigger concern should be the people actually using the restroom, not the people who are CHOOSING to vape. When Triton closed the downstairs bathrooms, the administration thought that would prevent vaping and be a positive change for students, but it wasn’t and it still isn’t. Just because students are vaping in bathrooms doesn’t mean bathrooms located around the school should be closed and students who regularly use them should be punished. On top of that, bathroom sign-in protocols have gotten out of hand. From personal experience, I have walked into the bathroom visibly hysterical, and wanted to splash water on my face to calm myself down; the next thing I know there is a teacher standing behind me giving me the option to get out of the bathroom or go sign in. When you see a child or ANYONE crying, your initial thought should be ‘how can I help them?’, but in this case, I was getting scolded because I didn’t sign in.
Using the bathroom at school is a right that all students have. But it is almost like that doesn’t apply to Triton. Following the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education’s guidelines, each bathroom is required to have a functioning sink and toilet per every 14 students. Looking at Triton, we are nowhere near the legal status it required to run a school without violating students’ rights. According to our students in the boys bathroom, they haven’t had dividers between urinals for years nor have they had functioning toilets for a number of weeks. Certainly, this is an alarming legal situation but the fact it’s gotten to a level of making students question their privacy and not be able to feel comfortable in their school’s bathrooms is just torture.
Triton’s unstable budget also ties to the bathroom situation simply because with more funding it could have been long since resolved. Rather than fix the pipes that burst, the toilets that spray when you flush them, and let’s not forget about the dysfunctional sinks, the school committee would rather spend our limited money on vape detectors. According to the the company HALO, vape detectors, their product is said to “detect keywords, occupancy, motion detection…”, with a detector like that we might as well put cameras in the bathroom. That is not only harming privacy, but making students uncomfortable in a place they attend daily. Rather than spending money on useless detectors when that money could be going into teachers pockets, Triton would rather lay off over two dozen teachers district-wide.
Yes, vaping isn’t ideal the second you step into the bathroom. Most students are just trying to use the bathroom and get out without having to walk through a cloud of smoke followed by a crowd of 10 people. Obviously, you’d think to yourself, ‘Who would want to just hang out in a bathroom?’ and the truth is, nobody knows, but we go on with our days despite being uncomfortable.
Although vaping isn’t good for the people that are taking it in first hand, second hand isn’t going to kill you. Doctor Raza, known for their work answering teens’ questions online, responded to a patient’s inquiry on their recent exposure to second hand smoke. Raza replied, “Significant exposure refers to daily interaction or exposure to vape vapors for at least 12 to 14 hours over a span of 5 consecutive days.”. So, its safe to say nobody is spending an hour let alone 12 hours in the bathroom, therefore second hand smoke isn’t going to throw your body for a whirlwind.
Having to walk across the equator just to use the bathroom is appalling. With one multi-person bathroom in the school for boys and girls each is absurd. With hundreds of people flowing through the building for 6+ hours a day, we should open more than one bathroom. With vaping being the leading factor of bathrooms shutting down, based on medical evidence and basic common sense, it isn’t a valid reason to shut a whole bathroom down. The efforts to put an end to vaping have been mildly effective but we all know it isn’t going to stop, so another bathroom needs to be open for the rest of the students just trying to go about their day without harming their health.
