Northwood campus security has recently increased monitoring outside the boys’ bathrooms, requiring students to leave their backpacks outside and limiting access to the lower-level bathrooms on randomly selected days.
Security personnel are now stationed outside the bathrooms during break, lunch and periodically during class; in addition, they currently limit the number of people entering the boys’ bathroom based on stall availability. According to the administration, these changes were implemented in response to ongoing behavioral issues, including vandalism, fighting and vaping.
“We’re not gonna search them when they go in, but at the same time, [leaving their backpacks outside] does decrease the chances of these things happening,” principal Eric Keith said. “The backpack—it’s also not necessary to have when you go into the restroom, so it didn’t seem like it was a major ask to have them leave it there, supervised [and] attended while they go in.”
Keith explained that this new protocol was enacted in part due to reports from parents that their children said they felt unsafe while using the boys’ restrooms. For the past several years, the school has also faced multiple issues of vandalism, which have primarily occurred in the boys’ restrooms. As a result, security is currently focused on only the boys’ facilities, not the girls’.
However, some male students have criticized security’s presence outside the restrooms.
“I don’t like it personally because it feels like we’re getting watched by someone even before we’re going into the restroom,” senior Siwon Min said. “I get how there was a history of boys’ restrooms getting destroyed by students, but I feel like this is kind of an overreaction.”
Although the administration has acknowledged students’ concerns over the issue, they plan to continue this policy as of now, while encouraging students to be more mindful of their actions in the future.
“We’re trying to set the tone a little bit,” Keith said. “But at the same time, if we feel like we’ve gotten to a point where it’s not as big of a concern as it has been in the past, I think we’re open to scale it back.”
