A new school year always seems to greet students with clean bathrooms.
But within a matter of weeks, many students encounter restroom facilities that are gross, leading them to question if the school is planning to do anything about it.
Students at Northgate High School, one of the two public high schools in Walnut Creek, often complain about the cleanliness of the bathrooms. Many students said that for years they have informed administrators about the poor conditions, but they say little seems to change.
Ninth grader Drake Russell, who attended Foothill Middle School in Walnut Creek, complained that Northgate’s bathrooms never have paper towels and are often occupied by students vaping.
“Northgate bathrooms are way worse [than Foothill’s],” Russell said.
Over the last few years, Northgate’s bathrooms have experienced floods or leakage from toilets, missing toilet paper, paper towels and feminine hygiene products, long lines, drug users (mostly vapers), potent smells, clogged or broken toilets, trash littering the floor surrounding the trash cans and sinks, and fights.
With so many problems arising on a regular basis, some students wonder if school administrators are even trying to address these problems. Students who responded to a Google form survey indicated it often seems that school administrators do not make a genuine effort to address important issues.
Eleventh grader Kaley Nguyen, who was a former member of Northgate’s spirit team, said she used to change in the bathrooms when the girls’ locker rooms were too crowded, but she often had to deal with water overflowing from toilets in the bathroom.
“For spirit I had to change in the bathrooms a few times but I soon switched for my other sport [lacrosse] just because I was so paranoid that my clothing would fall onto the floor [and] into the water,” Nguyen said. “I soon moved to the lockers in the gym, which ended up being way better since I also had my own locker.”
Northgate Principal Kelly Cooper said when a toilet doesn’t work or the bathrooms get flooded, the school submits a work order for maintenance to fix it.
But students still complain that there are many times when toilets do not function correctly.
“They all should be working,” Cooper said of the toilets when she was interviewed in early September, a few weeks after students returned to school.
Cooper said she agrees with the majority of students, who believe it’s students who are responsible for the destruction of the bathrooms.
To help address some of the issues the school has faced with its bathrooms, Cooper said hall monitors are stationed most of the time around the bathrooms. Two female hall monitors stand either directly in or outside the girls’ bathrooms, and two male monitors are often stationed in front of the boys’ bathrooms.
Cooper said she is aware of many issues related to the bathrooms, so she and the monitors try to address them as best they can. Cooper said whenever she or the other monitors see trash somewhere other than the trash can, they dispose of it.
Cooper also mentioned that Northgate’s custodians are all men, so they have to lock the girls’ bathrooms to clean them near the end of most school days. Sometimes this happens before sixth period ends, so the bathrooms are often locked, creating an inconvenience for girls who still need to use them. The boys’ bathrooms are also locked at the end of some days, but Cooper did not say they needed to be locked in order for the janitors to clean them.
Many Northgate students believe the school should hire some female custodians because they would be allowed to enter the girls’ bathrooms at any time to clean them, even when they are in use during the school day. Cooper also recognizes that the school should clean the bathrooms daily and regularly restock sanitation and feminine products.
Cooper admits that the bathrooms are not cleaned daily, and that paper and menstrual products are not restocked daily either. This violates a bill passed in October 2021, called the Menstrual Equity Act of 2021, which states that California public schools must provide students in 6th-12th grades with free menstrual products in the bathrooms.
Cooper said bathrooms are not cleaned on a daily basis because the janitors fail to clean them. She said she tells them to do this but she notices that sometimes they don’t.
The cleanliness of bathrooms is not a unique concern among East Bay high schools as students at other area high schools have complained about this problem as well. Pittsburg High School students have spoken out against their bathrooms’ cleanliness, and even had a “failed riot” when students protested at the end of the 2023-24 school year.
Pittsburg 12th grader Milan Barney, who witnessed the incident through her classroom window, said she watched a fight between two students that broke out during the daylong protest on campus. Students protested because of Pittsburg’s 20-20 minute rule, which prevents students from using the bathrooms during the first and last 20 minutes of each class, unless in an emergency situation.
During the protest, students stood by the school’s big concrete, outdoor water fountain screaming about the rule. Barney said the rule has not been changed this year and school administrators have said nothing concerning the bathroom protest.
“Administrators didn’t really do anything,” Barney said. “I don’t think they cared enough.”
Students say schools provide products in the bathrooms for students to use, but they are ruined quickly because of immature teenagers. Many students say it’s not the school’s fault that some students vape in the bathrooms and trash the facilities, but agree the administration can do more to provide cleaner restroom facilities
Northgate’s Cooper said she knows that as principal she must do something about the issue, but students have complained for years that no changes have been made. Shortly after being interviewed about these problems, more posters and rugs appeared in the bathrooms.
The posters read, “Notice: Your Mother Does Not Work Here Clean Up Your Own Mess,” and, “Good Housekeeping: This is Your Home Away From Home – Please Help Keep It Clean.” The rugs were placed on the areas surrounding toilets and sinks to keep water from covering the ground.
“Oh my god, is this new?” said a female student when she walked in the bathroom and saw the new rugs. “Is there a carpet in each [bathroom stall]? Oh my god, there is!”
Sylvana Vuong is an 11th grader at Northgate High School in Walnut Creek.
