Student human rights are being violated within Hall High School, due to multiple bathrooms being locked leaving only a scarce few left, and these few are spread around the school. This leads to many students having to walk long distances in order to use them, and also leads to overcrowding within the bathrooms, to make it worse they seemed to close most bathrooms during COVID increasing the likelihood of students actually catching the disease.
Some teachers actually look at the fact that students are able to use bathrooms more as a privilege than a right. “Matanzas High Teacher Calls Bathrooms a ‘Privilege’ and Threatens to Close Them. District Disavows the Sign.”(Flaglerlive). This upsets students due to the fact that using the bathroom is actually a human right, yet teachers don’t treat it as such. “Access to water and sanitation are recognized by the United Nations as human rights – fundamental to everyone’s health, dignity and prosperity.”(UN-Water).
Parents also dislike the fact that teachers are locking bathrooms, as sometimes students will complain to their parents about the fact they can’t use bathrooms comfortably and instead have to deal with the constant overcrowding within them. “My son had mentioned that many of the restrooms are frequently closed. He often can’t find one to use. I think it’s crazy that they can do that.”(Flaglerlive).
The main issue here is the student’s access to basic amenities, by locking up the bathrooms and forcing students to overcrowd themselves in one they’re going against all students’ right to health. Hall administration began locking the bathroom doors due to many things, graffiti on the walls, students breaking or stealing bathroom accessories and so on, which makes the reason for closing many of them valid.
The problem is that they are locking mainly boys bathrooms around the school, while leaving a majority of the girls bathrooms open. Due to this, it raises the question of discrimination and equality within the school, and whether or not the school is violating male student’s Right to Equality.
After interviewing a senior at Hall, Zachary Green, he said “It sucks, but I see why they lock the bathrooms since people keep vandalizing them, I wish they could find a better solution though.” I feel like most people would agree with Zachary since locking bathroom doors is somewhat a good way to limit the amount of vandalism and destruction going on within the school bathrooms, at the same time it also heightens the risk of students getting sick and passing around more germs to each other. In this case, the collective punishment they are trying to give out is doing more harm than good.
School administration should try to find a way to punish only those responsible for doing the negative actions within the bathrooms, but if their only solution is to punish the students as a majority then they should attempt to find ways that don’t impede our human rights.
