In all of the public schools I went to (in central Illinois), there were no doors on the stalls in the boys’ bathrooms.
I had always figured that this was because the school administrators wanted to be able to catch people smoking (or worse) in there, and so presumably the need for enforcement of rules outweighed the need for privacy. No bother; we guys just waited to do the ole #2 until we got home.
Now, in the girls’ bathrooms, the situation would have to be different due to the mechanics involved. However, having never seen the inside of a girls’ bathroom in a public school, I wouldn’t know for certain.
So, here are the questions:
Why would school administrators now want to have doors on the stalls in the boys’ bathrooms? Is my smoking enforcement theory correct?
Is this problem universal (at least across the States & Canada) or just unique to schools in my area?
Is my assumption that there are doors on girls’ stalls correct?
(More of a GD than a MPSIMS) Are school administrators justified in keeping the doors off the stalls in order to enforce the rules more efficiently? In other words, does the need for enforcing the rules outweigh the need for privacy (at least in the case of toilet usage among boys in public schools)?
In my old high school, oddly enough all the doors would be removed except for the handicapped stall. I’m not sure exactly what that was supposed to prove, but it was universal through the five or six male bathrooms in the building.
Never checked out the female bathrooms though.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
Is my assumption that there are doors on girls’ stalls correct? (quote ends here)
At my middle and high schools, only two out of five (or there about) bathroom stalls had doors on them, but I don’t think it was to watch our smoking habits–just laziness. They were both old schools, and in most of the cases, the doors had just fallen off.
I’ve been in both at my old high school. The stalls have been taken apart in the men’s locker rooms bathrooms, but not in all of the others. And the one girl’s bathroom I’ve been in had stalls in tact. But my school tended to worry about people with guns more than who was smoking in the boys’ room.
They took the doors off the stalls in the girls’ room at my junior high about (geeze) 25 years ago, in response, they said, to the smoking – though the girls who smoked didn’t bother to go into a stall to do it. Due to parental outcry, they soon put them back on.
No private showers in the girls’ locker room, though
I’ve never seen a girls’ bathroom or locker room that didn’t have doors on the stalls, except when they had fallen off or something and had never been replaced. My middle and high schools didn’t have private shower stalls, though.
Heck is where you go when you don’t believe in Gosh.
Being, old, old, and more old, back when it was called ‘Junior high’ the girls’ locker room shower was just one huge room with a number of shower heads. When the school integrated, I can still remember, they then made stalls for only black girls, and I couldn’t figure out why. There wasn’t any animosity toward them for BEING at the school, but there were a couple of girls who were jealous of the ‘stall treatment’!
But, the bathrooms always had stalls, not sure about the boys…though I would’ve loved to have had a peek!
“It’s hard to avoid reading because ever wheres we go, reading is there.”
In my experience it’s just a local administrative decision. I’ve designed a number of new schools and renovations, and it’s been about 75% in favor of doors for both sexes, and the minority in favor of doors in the girl’s rooms only.
The ‘no doors for the boys’ crowd have never cited smoking (though I’m sure it’s on their minds), but rather bad experiences with fights, drug dealing, and vandalism as their reasons. (I know the ‘vandalism’ reasoning is nonsense, since nearly 90% of the vandalism repair work we do is to girl’s and women’s rest rooms, in both institutional and office buildings.)
Nearly all of the new projects include both private and gang showers for both boys and girls these days, and the trend seems to be towards phasing out the gang showers altogether.
I’ve cluttered this thread up enough now, but I’ve got a great ‘Girl’s Locker Room’ story from a renovation job we did that might be worth a thread of its own.
Dr. Watson
“Why is this thus? What is the reason of this thusness?” – Artemus Ward
Kind of invited myself into it, didn’t I chief? I damn my own self sometimes. This one is good for all manner of righteous moral outrage, so it probably wouldn’t do to just post the story off the shoulder, as it were.
As it stands, the tale is probably Pit material, but I can maybe narrow the adjectives down to MPSIMS. As for the reactions, well, you know how this place gets . . . I’ll probably be tossed into the Pit in a matter of minutes anyway. Look for it tomorrow.
Dr. Watson
“I took one draught of life,
I’ll tell you what I paid,
Precisely an existence –
The market-price, they said.” – Emily Dickenson
There is no way in hell I could use the bathroom if there was no door on the stall. I’d probably just ditch school for the rest of the day and walk home if I had to go. Showers I don’t care about, it isn’t the naked thing. I mean even at HOME I lock the bathroom door and run water and turn on the fan because I don’t want anyone to hear me, let alone see me.
–
From an actual catalog: “Disco balls create an enchanting, dazzling effect of light shafts, adding movement and glamour to any occasion” the Abrams’ bris was certainly memorable
O p a l C a t www.opalcat.com
I had never heard of anyone else turning on the fan, the water, and the overhead fan to mask the sounds of themselves in the bathroom before!! It’s nice to know I’m not the only one. There was a ‘Mad About You’ episode where Jamie forces Paul to put his fingers in his ears and sing when they were locked in the bathroom together. But, I didn’t count that as the same, because I still couldn’t have gone, even if he did all those things. I’d have just popped a kidney first.
“It’s hard to avoid reading because ever wheres we go, reading is there.”
Mad About You? You mean people actually watched that show?
There were no doors on the stalls in the boys bathrooms in my high school. None in the middle school or even elementary schools either. Hard to imagine third graders firing up a Marlboro between classes, but you never know I guess.
“Honey we’re recovering Christians.”
–Tori Amos - In the Springtime of his Voodoo
Ye gads ladies! Perhaps I’m just the product of a different place and time, or perhaps it’s just the lingering after-effects of growing up with four sisters, but what exactly is the hold-up?
Are ye doing something unique in there?
I’m raising my children without benefit of a female in the household, and yer makin’ me wonder if I’m denying my 4 year-old daughter the inhibitions she’s due . . .
Dr. Watson
“What other liberty is there worth having, if we have not freedom and peace in our minds . . .” – Thoreau
I have no idea about the guy’s locker and bath rooms, but I always had doors on all of the girls, and I never took PE in High school, so I can’t tell you about them either.
As to what OpalCat said, dear, you’d never have survived in my house. It’s been so long since I even THOUGHT about shutting the door! Someone always wants me for something, it never fails,either the cat, the dog, one of the kids, or the phone rings, or… you get the idea. So, I gave it up as a lost cause years ago.
Except when we have company over, then the animals are on their own.
Seen on billboard near home:
Don’t make me come down there.
God
