“Hey Ivan, why does it smell so bad in here?”

“I don’t know bro. Gosh man! Why are the bathrooms so gross? There is literally a foot print on the toilet rim.”

Is this what most students can relate to at Birmingham Community Charter High School? Musty, gross, filthy, and—what is that on the floor? Jeremiah Delgado (12) said he doesn’t use the bathrooms because “they’re disgusting.”

Why are the bathrooms like this? The obvious answer is YOU, THE STUDENTS are the reason why the bathrooms smell and look like that.

The bathrooms at Birmingham are old and nasty. Some students go to the bathroom by asking for permission. “Teacher, can I go to the bathroom?” “I don’t know. CAN you?” “Ok, thanks.”

Students then go to the bathroom and look for the cleanest of the musty-looking stalls to use. Delgado said, “The only reason I go to the bathroom here is to wash my hands. The reason is because the kids here make the bathrooms nasty.”

Most students try to avoid going to the bathroom at all during school and say that they would rather ditch school than use the bathrooms on campus.

“There I was, [using the urinal] and then someone came too close to me. I felt that the other person was [too close]” said Jose Perez (12). Why are there no dividers in between the boys’ bathroom urinals? Some would think that a school so uptight about its dress code and tardy sweeps would at least spend some time and money to add some urinal dividers.

There should also be more mirrors in the bathrooms. Not just in the girls’ bathrooms, but in the boys’ bathrooms as well. There are only two boys’ bathrooms on campus that actually have mirrors.

Katherine Flores (12) said, “The school’s bathrooms for sure need an upgrade. There is only one mirror per girls’ bathroom in the school even though there are a lot of girls. Also, why are the bathroom stalls so small?  They definitely need to make the stalls bigger.”

Additionally, there are students that boast about how nasty and musty their particular gender bathroom is. Some students have argued and have actually had a debate about which gender bathroom is nastier. Flores said that “one time I went to the bathroom and that some girl didn’t flush.”

Jeremiah said, “The bathrooms are nasty because the boys get paper and just leave it in the toilet and on the floors for fun. Why don’t the boys learn how to flush the toilet?”

Boys or girls? Does it really matter? The point of this story is that the bathrooms at Birmingham are just plain nasty and unsanitary.

The bathrooms at Birmingham are not just nasty, but they are literally falling apart. Bathrooms at Birmingham look like they have not been improved for the last 50 years. Have you ever been to the bathroom and the soap dispenser doesn’t dispense soap?  You could at Birmingham. Have you ever been to a bathroom and the faucet only pours cold water for 1.5 milliseconds? You can if you go to Birmingham.

Also, most places want be eco-friendly and have stopped the usage of hand towels, (like BCCHS has) and have gotten electric hand dryers in their stead. Great idea, unless you go to Birmingham. Most hand dryers only take five to ten seconds to dry your hands, but at Birmingham it takes sometimes three to five minutes. Also, mind you, most students go to the bathroom during passing periods and the passing periods only last ten minutes.

Sometimes the sink gets clogged and the water starts to fill the sink. Where are you going to wash your hands? The already dirty water? You can guess the reason I don’t like to shake the hands of other students.

So to recap, here’s what is needed to improve the restrooms here at BCCHS:  1) restrooms need more frequent cleaning during school hours, 2) bigger stalls and boys’ urinal dividers, 3) more mirrors in both the boys’ and girls’ restrooms, and finally 4) upgrade the sinks, soap dispensers, and hand dryers in all the bathrooms.