A Big Problem | Teen Ink

A Big Problem

October 26, 2007
By Anonymous

Old tile grout, white tiles that are almost yellow and toilets that almost are always broken. These are only some of the problems with today’s school’s bathrooms. Not only are students making it a cesspool, teachers and faculty do little to fix the problem.

School bathrooms are becoming breeding grounds for all sorts of diseases. Some examples of these diseases are pneumonia, strep throat, the flu, and other diseases that can be much worse. Along with being an area to get diseases it is also like the post office of viruses for when some kid comes in they could pick up diseases brought from just about anywhere and take it back to a classroom and spread it to all of their peers. The bacteria that can come from a school bathroom is only half the story, the straight out disgusting look of the bathrooms in most schools is enough to make most kids puke and at the least not even use the bathroom. It is a true problem because when someone can’t tell a toilet from the city dump there is a likeliness no one will come within 100 ft. of any school bathroom ever again.

Sickness, diseases and nauseas students are all the cause of a filthy bathroom in school because it’s the one thing that every buddy has to use eventually. The sicknesses caused by this problem will get worse and worse spreading through the school and even may cause epidemics of multiple sicknesses throughout all schools with this problem. If ever there was a thorough health inspection done of school bathrooms there would not be many schools left open.

The graffiti written by student in school bathrooms only adds to the displeasure of using school bathrooms, finding hurtful and demeaning messages written all over bathroom walls is sometimes worse than an old nasty bathroom covered in mold. Swears, curses, and rude sentences can be found in any school bathroom over five years old. Besides graffiti being hurtful to most who see it, it also deteriorate the value of any school building it is in.

Many teachers and janitors would say “that school bathroom are cleaned every night”. They would say that there is no need for new bathroom facilities, they are clean enough. Another answer could be that kids don’t really care but the reason this editorial exists to raise awareness to kids about a growing problem in most schools around the world but mainly in the U.S. The bathrooms of school are not considered a health hazard by many teachers.

Teachers and school officials along with the main student population need to start caring more about the health hazards that are school bathrooms. To counter the statement that school bathroom are cleaned every night, how can we know that we can take a janitors word when the bathrooms look the same day to day and do they even use clean water. The real question here is how do we know? The answer is we don’t, we can’t know unless we went to court but that is taking it a little to far.
What someone needs to do is create a fund raiser or some sort of protest group to get schools new bathrooms and raise awareness to this constantly growing problem. Organize an after school group or something; just help out any way you can. Now do something to help out.


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