We all need bathrooms to do business, and rigid stalls and infrastructure secure our privacy. Unfortunately, in the North Hall of LSHS, there have been reports of large openings between the stalls and the doors.
The North Hall, located on the north end of campus, contains one student bathroom. With the help of a female student, it was confirmed that the girls’ bathroom stall’s gap between the doors was approximately 7 cm. Seven cm is a significant gap, which can easily fit a hand through the gap. In the men’s bathroom, one gap is 1 cm right in front of the toilet seat, and it is effortless to get a full view of the person doing his business.
Junior John Leszczynski has math class during the fourth period and said he sometimes uses the North Hall’s bathroom.
“I would not be comfortable using stalls while being pried on,” Leszczynski said.
Understandably, anyone would not want to use bathrooms with stalls that allow easy visibility from outside the stalls.
The North Hall bathroom was renovated during the recent modernization. It is unclear as to whether this was a design flaw or a builder execution flaw. If this gap was built correctly and was made based on the design, the district should have been more careful in approving the functionality of the design and execution of the remodel.
There are also gaps between the stalls and the floor which can be a privacy problem for students who want to use the restrooms. However, there are reasons such as cleanliness, more economical, and better air ventilation that justify the big gaps. Larger gaps between the floor and doors in a school can be there for safety reasons as well.
Restrooms are private spaces where a student should feel safe and isolated. Gaps between the stalls invade personal privacy and should not exist, so the school should fix them as soon as possible.
