Using a bathroom at school seems like it should be a simple task, but for many Edison students it’s a constant hassle. There are various rules to consider, from the 10-minute rule to only being able to use the bathroom on your classroom’s floor. 

The 10-minute rule, in which bathrooms are closed for the first and last ten minutes of the period prevents students from using the bathrooms for at least 23 minutes at a time throughout the day, considering the three minutes it takes to switch classes. This means that on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday bathrooms are closed for a total of 44% of the day. On Wednesday, the student bathrooms are closed for a total of 51% of the day. Because only one student per classroom is allowed out at a given time, students have to wait even longer to use the restroom. 

Edison’s 10-minute rule has existed as a 5-minute rule during the 2021 – 2022 school year. The explanation given by Principal Ojeda for this change was for social distancing purposes during the return from the Covid-19 lockdown. 

“I think there needs to be a policy because students will try to go to the bathroom the second class starts. I don’t know if 10 minutes is the best — I’d be ok with a 5-minute rule — but it’s not something that I’ve ever been egregiously offended by,” said English teacher Mr. Fischedick. 

It remains unclear why the rule was lengthened back to the 10-minute rule. Principal Ojeda said that he was following a chancellor’s regulation document from the NYC Department of Education stating that bathrooms should be locked for the first and last 10 minutes of every period. Further research found that the DOE document requiring this was from a decade ago (2015) and was intended for K-5 schools. 

The document states that it is primarily for elementary schools, but that its guidelines “May be applicable to middle and high schools as well depending on size and configuration of school as well as other school-specific variables.” In other words, our school is not required to follow the guidelines if it chooses. 

A more recent memo published by the State Education Department in 2019 addresses these concerns stating the following: “We understand there may be situations where activities in restrooms may require additional controls be put in place by a school district. However, controls instituted by the school district may not include a reduction in available use of the minimum required number of fixtures at any time the building is occupied.” Our school’s violation of this state mandate should be alarming. 

Concerns have been raised about the current bathroom policy’s negative effects on students’ well-being and ability to focus in class. 

“That has nothing to do with the 10-10 rule. That just has to do with people being in the hallway. That has to do with the amount of people that go to use the bathroom,” said Mr. Ojeda. “I just had my student input committee, and they’re telling me that the second floor girls’ bathroom, they want me to monitor it more because it seems like girls go into the stall just to talk or socialize, and they don’t come out. And then that causes a backlog. That has nothing to do with the 10-10 rule. That has to do with people just wanting to hang out in the bathroom.” 

While it is true that waiting for other people to come back from the bathroom is a major part of the restriction, the bathrooms being locked for up to 51% of the school day obviously plays a major role in students’ frustrations. 

With almost 2,200 students, Edison’s nine stalls for boys and nine for girls, if all bathrooms were open, would be in violation of OSHA standards if our school were a workplace. Typically, the boy’s bathroom on the 3rd floor is not open due to staffing shortages, bringing the number of stalls available to boys down to 5. OSHA standards would require 56 stalls for a workplace with the number of students our school has. 

Even during lunch, additional arbitrary rules keep students in the cafeteria longer than necessary by forcing them to wait in a line to get a pass so that they can walk a few feet to the bathroom and wait in yet another line to get into the bathroom. This inefficient system punishes students for using the bathroom during their lunch period, when it is least disruptive to their education. This is incredibly ironic considering that our lunch period is when our administrators and teachers recommend students use the bathroom. 

“I don’t typically use the school bathroom during my lunch period, because I think that the wait times are really long. I always see a long line outside of the bathroom for it,” as senior Ishita Jahan said. 

These lines are kept artificially long by keeping the bathrooms locked for so much of the day among other restrictions. For example, classrooms only have one pass for students to go to the bathroom. This means that if multiple students need to go, only one person can leave at a time. If any student takes a long time in the bathroom, no one in that classroom can go to the bathroom during that time. Furthermore, students are only allowed to use the restroom located on their floor. 

“Sometimes the school aides would prevent me from actually going to use the bathroom saying that I can’t use the bathroom on a certain floor, because of my pass even though it’s the only bathroom that’s open…” senior Janelle Deans said. 

In an interview with the Assistant Principal of Organization, Dr. Collado defended the school’s bathroom policies.

“So obviously the needs of a student in middle school and elementary school is a little bit different than it is for students who are in high school, right? So think about if you have younger siblings, when they go to daycare, they have to use the bathroom a lot more often than you do, right? So when these policies are thought about, discussed, and implemented, they do take into account the makeup of the student population that they’re serving,” Dr. Collado said.

The level of restriction students face in regards to their use of the bathrooms encroach on students’ rights and personal freedoms. Students are transitioning into young adulthood. Teens should expect to have more autonomy over their bodies. 

While administration claims that students can use additional bathrooms when primary bathrooms are locked, they are often closed or restricted. 

Administration wants to implement an app to track how many students are in the bathroom at a time and limit the amount of times students can go to the bathroom a day on top of the current policies. 

Edison’s limitations on bathroom usage and worries about students lingering in the hallways have resulted in uncalled-for restrictions that do not prevent the problems and put students’ health and learning at risk. While there is valid concern regarding hallway activity and misuse of facilities, restricting access to a basic need is in violation of state code and is not the answer. As students are growing into young adults, they deserve policies that respect their autonomy and prioritize their health over excessive control. It is time to have a policy that allows students the right to use the bathroom when they need.