High schools don’t want students smoking or vaping on school grounds. While there are a few ways to enact these rules, one school has raised a few eyebrows by getting rid of bathroom stalls entirely.
Vaping isn’t good for you.
While it may be better for you than smoking (and even that’s unconfirmed), there’s no doubt that vaping is bad for you. Recent headlines have attributed illnesses, and even deaths, to the phenomenon.
It’s super popular with young people.
Smoking rates are at an all-time low in the United States. That’s good! Conversely, though, vaping rates are absolutely skyrocketing thanks to the popularity of Juul and other e-tobacco devices.
School administrators are on the front lines.
Smokers on high school campuses have always been a thing. Even though there are more smokers than vapers nowadays, the principle remains the same: school administrators don’t want their students destroying their lungs on campus.
It’s come to a head in Alabama.
A couple of weeks ago at the beginning of the school year, a student from Wilson High School in Florence, Alabama, vaped a little too hard and was found passed out in a bathroom.
How do you police the bathrooms?
An area that’s inherently supposed to be private is also a good area to do illicit things. School administrators, fed up with vaping, faced a dilemma over how to enforce their rules in the bathrooms.
They found a way.
Faced with a choice of whether to give students their privacy or not, administrators decided to just go with the nuclear option and straight-up remove the doors from some bathroom stalls.
Parents aren’t so sure.
“I don’t like it,” parent Rachel Munsey told reporters. “They take their only private place in the school that they can do their business.” Munsey suggested simply patrolling the bathrooms, rather than getting rid of stall doors.
It’s intended to be temporary.
Principal Gary Horton said the decision was only made after multiple students snuck into the bathrooms to vape during breaks. He said the removal of stall doors was just a temporary fix.
Is it excessive?
That’s exactly what some parents are saying. “Me, as a parent, personally, I think that’s a little excessive,” said another parent. “Maybe they need to put a monitor in the hall, like they do.”
What’s their long-term solution?
“I removed some of the doors but I never removed all of them. I did this only as a temporary solution two weeks ago,” Horton explained in a back-peddling way . “All doors have been replaced.” He didn’t explain what the next steps would be.
It’s a weird story.
It sounds like a school took drastic measures to solve a serious problem, then changed course when parents reasonably objected. Let us know what you think of this story in the comments!
h/t: Yahoo!
