In the bathrooms here at GEHS, there has been an ongoing issue. First, it was vandalism, and now it involves loitering and a problem with the hall pass system.

The bathrooms are filled with kids during passing periods and during class, and with most of the bathrooms under maintenance, walking all the way across the school to use a bathroom that is filled with people is not a good feeling. Sometimes I just want to use the bathroom in peace, but they are just standing there talking about miscellaneous subjects while I go to the bathroom. I hate it.

There is now a new hall pass system that only allows one person to go to the bathroom at a time. There are problems in class with many kids saying that they can’t go to the bathroom because someone took the pass and did not use it to go to the bathroom, but instead loiter around the school or in the bathrooms. For example, a kid took the hall pass for the bathroom and skipped class entirely so no one could go to the bathroom unless it was an emergency. 

The thing is, no one cares about the hall pass system and I see kids sitting in the bathroom. At all times there will be at least one kid in the bathroom if not a group talking to each other while skipping class. I think that this would all be solved if there was any consequence beyond skipping class entirely because I see some kids getting away unpunished; they are seen at the start of the class but leave for the rest. 

I do not think the hall pass system is a solution, I think it is a hindrance for people who really need to go to the bathroom and has many more cons than pros. It provokes students to skip class instead of just using the bathroom and never coming back because they would get in more trouble for using the pass for the whole hour. I think this system is very impactful but not in very many good ways.