Union Endicott Student Launches Petition to Keep High School Bathrooms Open

One Union Endicott student is demanding that bathrooms in the high school need to be left open through the school day and has created a petition which they hope will accomplish that.

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It’s an age-old activity – hanging out in the school bathroom and catching up on the latest with friends. Generations of kids have been doing it but recently, bathroom hangouts have gone from a casual act of rebellion and class skipping to something more sinister.

In mid-December of 2021, parents of students at Binghamton High School were informed that their children would be forced to move to a virtual learning format for the rest of the year as the school worked to sort out some very serious behavioral issues following a fire that was deliberately set in a bathroom which then somehow led to a fight outside involving metal pipes.

On February 7, 2022, Broome County Sheriff's responded to Chenango Forks High School for a violence call that involved two students in a bathroom. A 17-year-old male student was found to have viciously beat up a younger student leading not only to the 17-year-old being expelled but also being arrested and charged with third-degree assault.

Schools are frustrated by growing violence and students are frustrated by feeling like their world is being locked down, evident by the online petition created by one student at Union Endicott High School who hopes that enough signatures will persuade school officials to keep all of the bathroom doors open during the school day.

In the petition, the student writes, "Closing all the school bathrooms because students “hang out” in them is only forcing all of the students into one bathroom. This makes lines longer and more bodies in general."

The creator of the " Open up the school bathrooms" petition on Change.org has quite a few supporters - at the time of this publishing, 334 people have signed in agreement that the bathrooms at Union Endicott should be left open during the day.

One signer of the petition wrote, “people do stupid stuff. but a bathroom is a right. not a privilege. i missed 10 minutes of my math class just so i could pee.” Another said, “All Bathrooms need to be open it's not fair to the kids to have to look all around for a bathroom that's open.”

The "Open up the school bathrooms" has been listed on Change.org for four weeks and the creator has not posted any updates as to whether the school has acknowledged the petition.