The bathrooms at Channel Islands have always been a dilemma during nutrition, lunch and even during class. 

Many students wish to be able to have a better bathroom experience with less wait times and a cleaner environment, but students may not be in charge of when the bathrooms open. So, we had the staff to ask our most common questions. 

In an Isle File interview, school principal Ms. Marianne Ramos explained that CI doesn’t open all the restrooms because they get closed if an incident happens or because of regular maintenance. Ms. Ramos mentioned that students are responsible for picking up after themselves. 

With that being said, if every person threw away their trash like they’re supposed to, the restrooms wouldn’t be as dirty and wouldn’t need to be cleaned as often and more restrooms would be open for student use. 

If every student picked up their trash there wouldn’t be much cleaning, but something worth noting is that in both restrooms, there is only one trash bin. Once the trash bin is completely full after people correctly throw their trash away, it will overflow and then the trash will be all over the place again. 

Some students had their own opinion about the bathroom shortage here at Channel Islands. Senior Marlene Perez, states she has “classes on the other side of the school. Sometimes my teacher is wondering why I’ll come back so late, but they don’t realize that there are long lines at the restroom.” 

As Perez explains, teachers often complain about their students coming back late to class, but they aren’t truly aware of these situations and as a result, students are getting blamed for their tardiness to class. 

Perez suggested, “Always [leaving] both restrooms open or at least open one of the top bathrooms.” 

Students express that there should be more trash bins in the stalls, because there are only small trash bins attached for certain items to be thrown away. But, toilets can also get clogged from the mass amounts of toilet paper getting flushed down the drain. Trash cans can be added so there isn’t a problem with having to constantly fix toilets or clean restrooms. 

Everyone seems to have the same opinion, that is: something can be done, it is just a matter of everyone working together and respecting communal areas for each other to use.