By Moriah Schranz

On Friday, Dec. 5, after discovering that every bathroom was locked and growing frustrated, I ventured off to the nurse’s office to ask to use the restroom as an emergency favor. I found myself in shock at the line of students waiting to do the same.

The bathroom had become such an issue that what should be the nurse’s office for medical inquiries had turned into a pit stop.

Like many students at Maury High School, I prefer to use the restroom during transition to avoid disrupting the flow of class. This year with the increasing frequency of locked bathrooms, this privilege has been often taken away.


Vice Principal Michael McCracken explained the current bathroom policy in place:

“Our current bathroom policy is we keep bathrooms locked in the mornings because that’s when we were seeing a significant number of behavior incidents. The bathrooms are also locked on the second, third and fourth floor, but  there is someone there on hall duty to unlock the bathrooms for students who have a pass. This is so students aren’t gathering in large groups inside the bathroom. First floor bathrooms are unlocked during lunches, and then all other times bathrooms are unlocked.”

Concerning the frequently locked stalls within the bathrooms, McCracken claimed that the issue is not caused by administration.

“I think among students, they are crawling underneath stalls and locking them and leaving them locked. That’s not something that’s done by the school.”

I asked about the locking of the bathrooms during transition periods and was met with a look of confusion.

“Bathrooms are traditionally unlocked during transition periods,” McCracken said.

McCracken also discussed the 10-10 rule regarding student activity in the hallways near the bell.

“Teachers will not write passes 10 minutes before the bell rings nor 10 minutes after,” McCracken said.

Since all bathrooms are locked during lunch, except the first floor, students on other floors still in class are unable to use the bathroom. For a student who is on the fourth floor and has third lunch, this may mean waiting over an hour to use the bathroom or walking down and up four flights of stairs. This can double or even triple the time it takes students to use the bathroom.

“The bathrooms are always locked,” said senior Keegan Anuar. “I usually try to find a security guard to open them for me.”

Senior Sophia Sadr had a similar issue.

“I don’t usually use the bathroom, but one day I tried to go and they were all locked,” said senior Sophia Sadr.

If security is not nearby, students are forced to search the school for an unlocked bathroom or return to class.  Students are forced to go on a scavenger hunt during instruction time just to relieve their biological needs. This is distracting for both teachers and students.

One of the major causes of this strict policy is the disruption with vaping in the bathrooms. For this reason, and the natural disruption that smoking in the bathrooms causes, it is reasonable that the school seeks to prevent this prohibited activity. The issue is that since half of the stalls are locked, these vapers then vape near the sinks or in the few stalls, causing even more disruptions and backlog. There is often a line to use the open bathrooms, and vaping only extends this problem.

AP Government teacher Dana Shaffer said:

“It’s a shame for the students who just need to use a bathroom but can’t because people are hanging out in there.”

To combat this problem, last year Maury installed vape detectors in the bathrooms. These detectors blink blue when they detect vape smoke and repeat the following message:

“Vape detected. Security notified.”

Whether or not security is really notified, the vaping students continue on with little care and no urgency to leave. The security officers I tried to speak to declined to comment.

After hearing the policy from Mr. McCracken and talking to a mix of students and teachers, there may be some difficulty in enforcing the rules. However, there is an agreement among those in Maury High School that the bathrooms are a major source of tension. It is easy to criticize, and I acknowledge that this is not an easy problem to solve. But I do know that the majority of students are not vaping in the bathrooms and should not be punished by being forced to hold their bladders because of the actions of a few.