BOYS PETITION FOR BATHROOM CHANGE Lack of dividers in bathrooms causes privacy concerns
T
CONAIRE HORGAN ONLINE SPORTS EDITOR | GRAHAM COUREY REPORTER
he bell rings and a horde of boys make their way to the bathroom. With no dividers to separate them, most urinals inside go untouched, with students instead opting for stalls in order to gain more privacy. Some students at McLean High School have reached a breaking point. “I can’t remember the last time I even used the bathrooms, mostly because they’re dirty all the time,” sophomore Zach Simon said. “I think if we added dividers, the stalls would also get cleaner as a result.” Simon isn’t alone in his feelings about the boys’ bathrooms. After observing unsanitary bathroom conditions and long lines for stalls, junior Forrest Sun decided to start a petition on Change.org in support of installing dividers between urinals at McLean High School. “I mostly started [the petition] because I felt like there were a lot of issues in the bathroom,” Sun said. “No one was ever using the urinals and there was [always] a long line to the stalls.” The petition has gained considerable traction over the past two months, garnering over 180 signatures since Oct. 19. Sun intends to present it along with another survey about students’ comfort using the bathroom as part of an argument in favor of restroom updates at a school board meeting in mid-December. “I’m just using [the petition] as evidence I’m going to present to the school board,” Sun said. “I [am also] most likely going to start a new survey...collect[ing] data on how many people actually use the restroom in comparison to using the urinals, [which] would show the public sentiment against not having dividers in the school.” The cause of improving bathrooms has gained verbal support from school administrators. However, they have not yet
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been able to convince the higher-ups in the county to spend on renovations.
I MOSTLY STARTED [THE PETITION BECAUSE] I FELT LIKE THERE WERE A LOT OF ISSUES IN THE BATHROOM.”
- FORREST SUN JUNIOR
“[The bathroom renovation] is something that I have been fighting for for 10 years now,” Principal Ellen Reilly said. “Fairfax County will tell you that it is on a queue as
to when renovations occur. I think that they have been the same bathrooms since 1999. I have asked them time and time again to do it.” The main reason for the county’s lack of enthusiasm for renovating McLean’s bathroom facilities is the cost. “The problem is that to renovate a bathroom, [it costs] about a million dollars,” Reilly said. “It’s not [cheap], so that’s part of why it hasn’t been done.” Even the less expensive solution of simply adding dividers presents a logistical challenge: it would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which specifies that a shorter urinal must be accessible in all school bathrooms and requires a minimum amount of space between urinals. “[The administration] put in a request years ago to have dividers, but the request was denied due to ADA concerns,” Director of Student Activities Greg Miller said. “In order to put in dividers, we would have to put in new plumbing in the entire bathroom.” While Sun and other proponents continue to face a number of logistical challenges regarding the installation of dividers, many hope that support for the issue will increase countywide. “I think that boys across the county would also be interested in being a part of this as well, because there’s complaints that are starting to come up,” Reilly said. “It’s time for students to get out there and start saying, ‘This is what we want.’”
no privacy — Urinals in the blue hallway bathroom go untouched during a
lunch break. The absence of dividers causes students to use stalls instead, which can cause long wait times to use the bathroom. Photo by Graham Courey | Page design by Taylor Olson
