Blake Bathroom Buffoonery

Around the end of November, you may have noticed a bothersome number of bathrooms were locked. The bathroom right in front of your class may be locked so now you have to practically search the school for an unlocked one. Due to this inconvenience, you may have wondered why they’ve been locked. 

We asked security head Ms. Victoria White, as well as Administrator Mr. Bill Parsons and according to them, “When people do things in the bathroom, they’re not supposed to, then they become locked.” As many people suspected, some of the reasons listed included (but are not limited to): smoking in the bathroom, hanging out in the bathroom, or damaging the bathroom. 

A reason not as widely speculated however, included health and sanitation concerns. “We’ve had people tear off soap, dispensers, and mirrors. At that point it’s deemed unsafe if those things are not able to be used… Two of our bathrooms don’t have water at all, so how are you guys gonna wash your hands?”

As of Jan. 3, eight out of 26 bathrooms were locked with five being girls’ restrooms and three being boys’. When asked about this discrepancy, security head Ms. White stated, “Yeah, I- I apologize about that. It seems like the girls’ bathrooms are hit more, cause in two of the girls’ bathrooms, the water doesn’t work,” It wasn’t purposefully that there were more girls bathrooms locked then boys, the girls bathrooms just needed a bit more attention. 

When we asked when the bathrooms will be unlocked and what it’ll take to unlock them, Mr. Parson responded, “We’re waiting on the maintenance part of it, we’re really waiting on parts. We have unique, different style sinks [which work electronically] and when all that breaks then it becomes unsanitary for you guys.”

On a higher note, the long locked second floor bathroom above the theater at the end of A hallway has been unlocked as maintenance was recently completed on the bathroom. 

Hopefully this answered some of your questions on why the bathrooms have been locked, and hopefully we’ll get the parts that’ll finally unlock the bathrooms.