Old problems disappear along with bathroom doors

The decision to remove the first floor bathroom doors has helped eliminate vandalism problems such as graffiti and tearing down and clogging fixtures. Business manager Jim Funk, who made the decision, said that vandalism disappeared immediately since the removal of the doors last spring.

The other alternative to solving this problem was to keep the bathroom doors locked, said SGA President Eric Hysen, but he said that removing the doors altogether was the better choice. "I got a lot of complaints last year that a lot of bathrooms were locked when people were leaving at three," Hysen said. He believes it is an acceptable trade-off since it is better than not being able to go to the bathroom at all.

Privacy is the main concern with the removal of the doors, according to Hysen. Even though the bathrooms in the 160s hallways have walls that obscure the vision into the bathroom, no such barriers are in place in the bathrooms near the main office. According to Hysen, there will be future changes to address the privacy concerns.

This strategy of preventing vandalism is not new to Montgomery County. According to Hysen, a number of other high schools in the county have their bathroom doors removed as well, although some schools' doors may have been removed for different reasons. "This isn't something that's only happening at Blair; I've been to many other schools in the county that also remove bathroom doors." he said.

Doors will not be removed from any other floors, Funk said. He said that most of the problems occurred with the bathrooms on the first floor, and that there is little need to take the doors off elsewhere. But the bathroom doors on the first floor are to stay off permanently, according to Funk.