When people think of big problems in a school they normally think about bullying, drugs, and failed grades. However, one of the biggest problems affecting Hall students is the administration’s decision to lock many of the bathrooms. 

The administration at Hall High School decided it was best to lock most of the boys’ bathrooms to prevent the usage of e-cigarettes, vandalism, and other use of drugs on school property. Hall High is not the only school in this country that has decided to lock the bathrooms due to drugs and vandalism. There are two other schools that have decided to lock the bathrooms and they are Godinez Fundamental High Schooling’s Santa Ana and California and Holliston High School in Holliston, Massachusetts. Like Hall, these schools locked their bathrooms which has made it very inconvenient for students to use them.                                              

Gallery • 2 Photos

Dan Davidson

One of the locked bathrooms.

We went around Hall High and asked some students their opinions on the matter and their answers weren’t surprising. We asked one student, who asked not to be named, his opinion on locked bathrooms and he told us, “The school only locked the boys bathrooms and have yet to lock any of the girls bathrooms. This infuriates me extremely.” This is important because the girls do the same things as the boys do, but the school doesn’t recognize that and only focuses on what the boys do. Then we interviewed another student at Hall High, named Bridget Aube, and when we asked her opinion on the subject she responded with, “I think it’s kind of dumb because at the end of the day kids are still going to Juul and they’re just gonna do it somewhere else”. This quote is important because it shows how the administration’s locking of the bathrooms has little to no effect on the actual problem. 

When the Hall High School Assistant Principal, Shelly Solomon, was asked why the administration started locking bathrooms she said, “We can’t possibly police everywhere and when we identify a location where there’s an ongoing issue, we have to lock bathrooms so that we can then monitor all the other areas”. So, we can see now that they don’t lock the bathrooms in order to stop the kids from vaping, they lock them just to catch kids who are doing it. It shows that Mrs. Solomon agreed that the locking of the bathrooms wasn’t stopping the kids from vaping when she said “I think that we can only educate students on the dangers of vaping here at school, but what students do outside of school is more up to their families to help”. 

When asked if she thinks the locked bathrooms have become a problem for students, she said, “There are so many [bathrooms] here that I don’t think its a problem”. Mrs. Solomon also said she thought that locking bathrooms to stop vaping was worth kids spending more time out of class going to farther bathrooms. This is important because the assistant principal here at Hall High believes that a few extra minutes outside of the classroom to find an open bathroom is worth it in the long run. She, the school district, and administration believe they are making a difference in the vaping epidemic by locking the bathrooms. Do you?