I’m sure all of you have heard of the problem of kids vandalizing our school bathrooms. Sadly, we aren’t the only ones. Schools around the country have reported this very problem. In some cases, students have gone as far to rip mirrors off of walls, break sinks, clog toilets and flood the bathrooms. Here at Lagunitas Community School we have addressed this issue by locking the bathrooms. Nothing else seems to deter people, even having talks with the people who have caused the damage doesn’t seem to change anything.

My question is, what’s their deal? Why do they vandalize the bathrooms and how can we stop it?

In our school, it’s primarily the boys who have caused destruction in the bathrooms. During 2020-2022 a trend emerged called the “Devious Lick Challenge”. The trend consisted of videos of people who would vandalize and break school property. Although damaging the bathrooms was an issue before, the trend only intensified and glamorized the destruction.

In the boys bathroom the dividers were ripped off the walls, as well as soap dispensers. Food has been stuffed in toilets and thrown on the floor. When we returned from COVID lock down, there was already so much chaos. This trend just added to it.

Every person I’ve spoken to about vandalism in our bathrooms have all come to the conclusion that it is bad. Of course, this is obvious but it continues to happen. It seems that the people who are the cause of the problem know it’s not a good idea, but they still do it. I believe that the issue is tied to wanting to be “cool”. When you’re a teenager there’s this need to be accepted by your peer group. Doing stupid things can be intriguing to someone who is trying to impress their peers.

Of course, I am not the person who did this, so I can’t truly know why or what drove them to do it. All of the people in our school are wonderful and kind so I couldn’t ever imagine someone would do this with negative intentions.

Now, how can we stop this? My research all recommended strict supervision. This is a tricky situation because we have already tried locking the bathrooms, which has helped for a little bit, but it doesn’t work as a long term solution. Constant supervision isn’t good either. It’s not realistic, we can’t have staff constantly watching the bathrooms and if we are too strict it will drive students to rebel more.

 I believe we should give the kids the benefit of the doubt. Giving them a chance to learn and grow is crucial but being hesitant to that is understandable. We have given them more than enough chances.

One morning I walked onto campus and I saw our janitor cleaning up a mess that the middle school boys had created. I saw him working at a job that was so unnecessary and it made me think. What if the learning my peers need to do is learning the privilege they have, not having to clean up after themselves.

I propose the people who have vandalized the bathrooms get to have the job of cleaning up the bathrooms. Then they can realize how hard the job of cleaning up broken soap dispensers and watered down food really is. Of course, this is only an idea. None of this will actually happen without someone taking action. 

If you’re interested in this idea you are welcome to contact the school board and take it up with them. This idea is not in any way to punish the boys, but to help them learn from their mistakes and appreciate the work our staff does for them.

The people at this school are amazing and full of potential. The vandalism that our school faces is a difficult problem that we need to solve. With a little help and learning I believe that it’s a small hill we as a school can climb.