You finally get the pass to use the bathroom during your fourth-period math class. You are upstairs in the N building, and thankfully there is a bathroom nearby. Arriving, you see the bathroom is shut down. That’s fine, you head downstairs to the next closest bathroom, disappointed, you see that one is closed too, with the next closest one being halfway across the school. The school district needs to come up with a solution to this problem.

The N building bathrooms have been closed for months on and off throughout the year. Many students wonder if a punishment for vandalism causes this, or if the bathroom does not function properly. The answer is both. 

The bathroom upstairs has had plumbing issues for years, which some of the time affect the downstairs bathroom, making both of them unavailable for students to use. That is the problem right now. Other times, the bathrooms are shut due to vandalism. 

It is not easy to get plumbing problems fixed in a timely manner. With how often they occur at Poway, and let alone all of the other schools in the district, it becomes a lot of work and time for the problem to get addressed. According to head custodian Pete Cypher, there is only one guy in the district who fixes maintenance issues, so his workload gets backed up. 

This creates a big inconvenience to students and staff when kids vandalize the bathrooms and make the bathrooms on one side of the school closed to everyone. Bathroom breaks during class are supposed to only last five minutes, but having to walk across the school, do your business, and walk back, normally takes kids much longer. This keeps kids from learning and robs teachers of the time they have with their class. 

To help the situation, students need to respect the bathrooms at school. It is not fair to anyone else if they are closed due to destruction by a small group of students.