An ongoing problem has resurfaced once again here at WSH. Students are unable to use several of the bathrooms during lunches. This year, the problem has been brought to student voice, allowing many students to voice their opinions and concerns.

“I decided to join student voice because I think it is important that we get to express our opinions about the school and stuff like that. I think it is making a safer place for everyone if we can all have a voice and it is a wide variety of kids so we are getting different options on all different aspects,” junior Coby Sipple said.

  Student voice is a group of students here at school who gather together and discuss problems students are facing and try to come up with solutions. One of the main issues students have noticed is the bathrooms.

  “We talked about the locks in the bathrooms and how they are going missing very often. We also worked on the crowding in the bathroom because it is a serious problem with the groups staying in the bathroom, lots of vaping and stuff like that in the bathrooms,” said Sipple.

  Student voice has already implemented many different strategies in hopes to make going to the bathroom for students more comfortable.

  “We talked with Mr. Esper at the end of student voice and he was very good about taking in all of our ideas. Pretty much everything we presented to him about the bathrooms was taken into consideration because we talked about the QR codes and the hooks and locks on the stalls,” said senior Daisy Kinney.

  The QR codes were put in every bathroom around the school to help students feel more comfortable sharing things they have noticed in the bathroom. Even with students trying to make using the bathroom more convenient, many students are still not following school rules which has resulted in some of the wing bathrooms being locked during all three lunches.

  “We were just thinking having fewer bathrooms open would allow for less bad stuff to happen and since we don’t have enough security guards to watch all of the bathrooms, just having some closed could make it easier for the ones that are open to be watched,” said Sipple.

  The student body has received little to no information about the bathroom issues and why they were being locked. This has resulted in many students getting upset and angry because they just don’t understand why it is happening.

  “I think the staff needs to do more on speaking out about what their process is and what their thinking is. We have announcements for reasons to be able to share that, I think that would be a good idea. The plan should be open to everyone because just closing the bathrooms and not giving an explanation is not going to help anyone in the end,” said Sipple.

  Although, locking the bathrooms inconveniences many students it is only happening because students are not respecting the freedom of all of the bathrooms being open. Due to them being locked at all three lunches many students are in the wings for most of that time and have to miss extra class time trying to find an unlocked bathroom.

  “It is definitely really annoying for the people in the wings but I think whatever we need to do to help minimize the amount of bad stuff happening is good. Overall, I think it is a good solution,” said Kinney.

  Even though student voice is only a few select students, the school’s main focus is to make sure everyone’s voice is heard.

  “In student voice we have talked about working on a platform that could be an anonymous suggestions box. Any adult working with student voice or any student you could talk to, it is a really great group of people,” said Sipple.

  If you’re facing any issues or have any suggestions do not hesitate to reach out to a staff member or a member of student voice.