The Dirty Truth About Chavez Restrooms

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Students at Cesar Chavez High School always complain, especially this year, about the restroom and rules and policies we have to follow, and tend to think it’s unfair for students who just simply don’t misuse this advantage. Have you ever experienced the urgent need to go use the restrooms here at Chavez, but had difficulties trying to get there because of our rules and restrictions? Most students claim the restrooms are never accessible, the lines are too long, occasionally unclean and don’t provide the necessities we actually need, and most of all always wonder why only two out of the fifty-five restrooms we have are the only ones that are mainly open.

Michael Chicago, a CSM at Chavez, explains that students have strict restroom rules because, “Some kids don’t go to class on time, and skip class to make phone calls, text, and take over stalls.” He also states that, “It is a necessity based on the conduct of students who don’t follow the rules and is unfortunate for the good kids who really need to use the restroom.” Seniors Maharani Prohm and Adolfo Meza both share similar opinions that the restroom rules provided by our school are not fair for many different reasons. Adolfo complains it’s difficult to use the restrooms because “some teachers ultimately decide their own restroom policies and this often leads to inconsistency in students getting to use the restrooms.” In other situations, “sometimes when students go to the restroom when they really need to, the thirty minute or fifteen minute rule is up and the restrooms are locked again,” Prohm asserts.

Students also tend to experience difficulties besides the restrooms always locked. At times they’re actually open, there’s difficulties students have to endure such as long lines, how far restrooms are from their classrooms and the uncleanliness.  Based on his personal experience, Adolfo objects, “I have to walk to the other side of campus just to go to the restrooms because only G and sometimes C building restrooms are open, and it takes time off of my actual class-time and I miss important things during class.” Not only it’s difficult to get to the restrooms, students who attend Chavez disfavor of how the restrooms are either unclean or lack necessities that we need. Besides how “there’s only two out of the fifty-five restrooms total that are open in the whole campus, Prohm protests that,“There’s always no toilet paper, we never had toilet seat covers, it’s unsanitary, no soap, and broken hand dryers. We have the right to have these basic necessities and it’s the least the school can do for the inconvenience of only having one to two restrooms open on the daily.” There’s also smokers in the restrooms and gives major inconvenience to students due to the foul smell. Meza points out how “instead of checking for smokers, some CSM’s go after people who are wearing hoodies, not wearing their ID’s or vests, but why should that matter than people actually ditching or smoking in the restrooms.”

CSM’s try their best to keep the restrooms open when the thirty or fifteen minute window is open. Chicago explains that it is inevitable that they don’t open it on time because they “don’t know the restrooms are going to be closed because they could be occupied with different tasks, but we try our best to open the restrooms. We encourage students to use it during passing period, lunch, or after school so they wouldn’t miss any class time.”

The true reason why the two restrooms that are mainly open is because our CSM’s are occupied with many tasks they have to do for our school. In the end, even if there’s many complications, CSM’s and all the staff in our beautiful school are just doing their jobs and provide these rules purely for our safety. Most of us may not agree with the rules and policies, but we still need to follow them. We just need to hope for the best for our restrooms to be cleaner and for us to be provided with the necessities that we deserve.