Let’s face it: the bathrooms are extremely gross. That’s no slight to the janitorial staff who work extremely hard to keep the school clean, but a reflection of the student body. It’s disrespectful to see gum and other items in the urinals, unknown substances on sinks and counters and ominous liquids on the floor.

All of these instances aren’t just uncommon. In fact, they’re expected. It’s rare to see a clean bathroom.

Take the week back from Winter Break as an example. That was a short week with only three days and the bathrooms were already disgusting.

Now, a certain amount of uncleanness is expected. It’s a public bathroom after all. However, in almost every single other (well maintained) public bathroom that I’ve seen, these common problems with the bathrooms are typically uncommon.

If the general public can keep a bathroom clean, then students can. The only thing that students need to do is to not actively make the bathroom worse. For example, gum in the urinals. There’s garbage cans all over the school, and almost everyday there’s gum in the urinals.

The level of laziness at play is astonishing. Treating the bathrooms with respect takes such little effort, and yet somehow some students still can’t do it. It’s frustrating for those who do treat the bathrooms correctly.

The bathroom environment is also abysmal. The bathrooms are consistently filled with groups looking to vape, and it makes the bathrooms feel unsafe at times as a result. There’s a consistently awful bathroom atmosphere.

This is an issue that goes hand in hand with other problems such as trash being slewed all over the commons. Quite frankly, some of the student body doesn’t value cleanliness in the spaces at the school, and it’s disheartening to see.

There’s a general apathy about things being unclean. It’s become so common that most ignore it, and that complacency needs to end. The spaces that we occupy and use as students are vitally important to the school experience.

As a result, it is imperative that students start treating these spaces with more respect. Not just for fellow students, but also for the janitorial staff who have to deal with the aftermath. It really doesn’t take any effort.

There isn’t some crazy solution to this problem. All it takes is using the bathrooms how they were meant to be used. Simply acting in a normal manner is all that it would take to solve this issue.
If every student treated the bathrooms and other spaces with respect, the school environment would become dramatically more positive and welcoming. For those who are already treating these spaces with respect, thank you. For everyone else, be better.