Haircuts, wholesome messages on stall doors, vape detectors, and fire alarms are the chronicles of PHS’s bathrooms. Soap dispensers crammed into an overflowing toilet bowl and a urine coated wall now join this list.
On Oct. 11, administration addressed vandalism and damages to boys’ bathrooms inflicted by students in an email to the student body.
“Due to this [damage] the second floor STEAM bathroom will be closed indefinitely,” Vice Principal Erin Igoe said in the email. “Any students discovered carrying out this kind of behavior will not only be subject to discipline but also assume financial responsibility.”
STEAM building custodian Yudith Giler discovered various destructions in the boy’s bathroom throughout the whole month of October. She said that when she found that someone had peed in the corner of the boy’s bathroom, it was her last straw.
“It was not just vandalism,” Principal Sukanya Goswami said. “It was pure destruction.”
Giler said that such destruction in the bathroom cannot be compared to anything that has happened at Piedmont before.
“There were things taken out from the wall and smashed on the floor, there were doors taken off the hinges,” Goswami said.
Giler also said that she found paper-filled toilets, paper towel coated ceilings, and a soap dispenser in the toilet.
The damages have taken hours of work from custodial staff in addition to thousands of dollars in repair, Goswami said.
“It was beyond our imagination that students would think of such destruction to have in their own campus,” Goswami said.
Students agree with the staff’s disbelief.
“I heard there was toilet paper flushed down—like a whole roll. And that’s pretty wasteful of our school resources,” freshman Noah Hassain said.
In response, the administration has laid repercussions and proactive measures.
Principal Goswami said that the front doors of affected bathrooms have been propped open to better supervise the stalls and sinks. Students are now being asked to use sign in and sign out sheets, as well as hall-passes when they leave the classroom.
“These are regular practices that happen in every school,” Goswami said.
While these procedures are aimed toward supervision of students, many students aren’t convinced of their success.
“I think the sign out sheets aren’t effective because no one really takes initiative in keeping people honest with that,” sophomore Jasper Schuetz said.
Giler said that since enacting sign out sheets, nothing has happened in the bathrooms. She said that the school is a resource and that students should take care of it, and that she hopes everything will calm down.
