Late last week, male students noticed a major change to the restrooms on campus: the open urinals had now been divided up, looking like a more normal public restroom.
The change comes amid concerns of student privacy as more students are using the restrooms than ever.
According to a survey which polled 89 students at the high school, 32% or around 30 of the students poled go to the restroom six or more times per week.
In the same survey, students were asked how safe they felt in the restrooms, with over half of respondents picking 1 or 2, the two lowest options.
One student who likes the addition in the restrooms is senior Noah Lewis.
Lewis usually uses the restrooms when he must, going around twice a week.
“The restrooms are usually somewhere I stay away from,” Lewis said. “I would much rather prefer to go either at home or after school when no one is around.”
While recognizing the reasoning for the addition of the dividers, many students, including Lewis feel as if the money spent to install them would be better off being used elsewhere.
“I feel like the school should have other priorities when it comes to the budget,” Lewis said. “The first thing they should have done to the restrooms is put money into keeping them clean and adding paper towels.”
While student opinion is mixed, one of the monitors is happy the dividers have been put into place.
Hall monitor James Williams hasn’t worked at EHS long, but his presence has been much felt.
As a hall monitor, Williams works to keep students out of the halls during class. Another aspect of his job is monitoring the restrooms to make sure that students are using them for the intended purpose.
“Each monitor that’s by the bathroom after each person enters, we allow one person in solo and we trust it, but when it is a group of students, a monitor usually rotates to a spot where the students and cameras can see us,” Williams said.
Another aspect of the dividers that could be worrisome was the extra privacy, leading to more students doing things with the dividers as cover; Williams thinks otherwise.
“There is no place to hide [phones or vapes], there isn’t enough room to do anything like that,” Williams said.
The monitor does see one aspect of the installation that could be problematic based on how students react.
“[The dividers] could be vandalized,” Williams said. “That would make the job a lot easier.”
However, Williams thinks one major factor will cancel the destruction of the dividers out.
“This new generation of boys want privacy at all times,” Williams said. “Overall, it’s probably a good idea.”