Walking through the hallways, sitting in class, talking to friends at Centaurus, one topic seems to surface often; the school bathrooms. A vast majority of students seem to have complaints about them for various reasons including: the behavior of people in them, the quality of them, and the accessibility of them. Simply complaining about school bathrooms around peers can cause a wave of sympathizing. However, there is a new grant which, though it may not ease every issue surrounding the bathrooms, will be one small step for students next year, and one giant leap for the future of Centaurus.

Students have continuously reported negative experiences with the school bathrooms. One student who wished to remain anonymous for fear of students in the bathrooms harassing them details that “Oftentimes I will just be trying to go to the bathroom and some girls will look through that crack of the stalls, and try to look at you doing your business, and sometimes they will laugh or just try to stare through the (door) crack…  Sometimes girls will push you away even if you are polite and say ‘excuse me’ and just want to go to the bathroom…  Whenever I come out of my stall I need to go wash my hands but there are crowds of girls crowding around the sink. Often I have to wait for them to move and I say ‘excuse me’ and I say ‘I need to wash my hands’…  I think all of it is really not okay and it makes me feel uncomfortable and I often have to hold it or wait until a class is in session in order to go to the bathroom in peace and even sometimes when class is in session girls will somehow still be in there vaping or doing whatever they do. I’ve also seen them lift their shirts up and flash each other. It’s really not the best experience and I just want it to be better so I’m comfortable and don’t have to hold my pee for hours”.

Experiences like this are incredibly widespread among high schoolers, and aside from complaints about behavior of people in the bathrooms, they also complain about the quality of the bathrooms. In a reply to a post asking for people to share their experiences and opinions on the school, senior Ink Gibson writes “The bathroom in math wing had no soap for months and for what???”. People also take their opinions to social media, oftentimes the Instagram account CHS Complains, and the amount of posts complaining demonstrates how much of an issue this is.

In an interview with a transgender student who also wishes to remain anonymous for safety, they responded to a question asking about their opinions on the bathrooms saying “If it was completely up to me (to improve school restrooms) I would either take some of the normal bathrooms, and overhaul them to make them gender neutral. My biggest issue is the wait time for the bathroom upstairs, and the bathrooms by the Argo are not necessarily clean; so that just leaves the one in the science wing which is nice but has a longer wait. Sometimes I give up waiting for the bathrooms and go back to class, because I could be learning right now, you know?… If they’re going to add a few (bathrooms) I think that’ll help, more could have a bigger impact… I think if they end up like the Argo bathrooms, it’s not going to help but if they end up like the one in the science wing, it definitely will”.

Our school will in fact be adding new bathrooms next year; up to four of them in the cafeteria. In an interview with Principal Dan Ryan, he discussed the bathrooms.

[Max Hawkins]

So as I understand it, there’s a grant going towards the bathrooms next year. Would you like to talk about that?

[Dan Ryan]

I would, thank you. So as you know we are needing more bathrooms at Centaurus High School. And more specifically, we’re really in need of single stall bathrooms. So last October when they (construction workers) came through, they did some work on the bathroom, just some minor improvements. Then they did some single stall (improvements), and really we have the two in the Argo and the one student one upstairs and the one in the nurse’s office which really barely counts because it’s the main office. 

So with the Engineering Remodel because there’s more square footage being added to the school it actually mandates that we have to get more bathrooms put in. So what it’s looking like, and I can’t say 100% right now is it’s looking like we’re getting up to four single stall bathrooms, and it’s going to be off the cafeteria. So it’s going to be in our main student areas instead of all the way down the hall or all the way in the science wing.

[MH]

Where is this money coming from?

[DR]

This money is coming from the BVSD Bond, so essentially in education a bond is when a school district goes door to door and asks for a lot of money. So people are going to raise their property taxes in five years and in ten years in order to cover these things at school. Now, it doesn’t cover, like, paper towels and markers, and it doesn’t cover people, like, new teachers and things like that, it’s only physical improvements. 

[MH]

So what else is the money going to?

[DR]

So the big ones coming to Centaurus is we’ve got an engineering addition that’s coming on there. We have a lot of improvements going through athletics and athletic facilities. We’ll have these bathrooms that are coming in, and then we’ll also have a lot of improvements to our intensive learning centers and the special education classrooms, and then lots of stuff that you don’t think of as important. Windows, skylights, heating and cooling, electrical stuff, and those kinds of things. And so that’s all due to this generosity.