High-school student leaders lobby for restroom privacy

High-school student leaders lobby for restroom privacy

Feb. 24, 2001

ONE STALL in a boys’ restroom at Montezuma-Cortez High School now sports a door for increased privacy and security, but another lacks even the hardware required to mount such a door.

By Aspen C. Emmett
Journal Staff Writer

For young men using the bathroom at Montezuma-Cortez High School, some of the facilities bring a whole new meaning to the term "public restroom."

For years, the toilet stalls in two of the boys’ restrooms have gone without doors, yet recent efforts by the MCHS student government spurred the administration into action, prompting the return of privacy in at least some of the stalls.

However, just hours after the doors went back up, someone showed gratitude by kicking out the lock on one of the newly-hung doors.

"It’s really frustrating," said senior class president Brittany Johnson.

Despite the disrespectful action, Johnson said the student government will continue to push for the doors to be maintained.

Earlier this month the student government adopted a resolution stating: "There is a distinct lack of privacy and security for male students using MCHS bathrooms. Stall doors are installed in all female bathrooms but not in all male bathrooms. The discrimination on the basis of sex in this area is unwarranted, as all have the right to privacy in this area."

Student body president Chris Hawkey said the action was motivated by the simple notion that privacy is a standard right to which everyone is entitled.

"Any other facility in the world basically has stall doors," Hawkey said. "There is no reason at all that our school can’t. We want the students to be comfortable here."

The resolution also stated that numerous complaints have been mounted over the years regarding stall doors torn off by students in horseplay, yet these incidents were over a decade ago — words that have already come back around to bite the student leaders.

MCHS principal Mark Rappe said the school responded immediately with a temporary solution of using old parts to offer at least one private stall in every bathroom.

"We put up two privacy doors, one in the junior hall area which is kind of the central area of academics, and then we put one in the commons-area boys’ bathroom, which is the area that serves the patrons of the gymnasium," Rappe said. "One door was kicked, which broke the locking mechanism. The door is still functioning but the door won’t lock until we get a replacement."

The doors were installed in a makeshift effort because the partitions didn’t actually have the fittings or screw holes to hang doors from, raising the question whether there had even been doors in the first place, Rappe said.

However, a brief history of some pertinent events at the high school brought new light to the issue, suggesting that vandalism was not the original culprit in the door dilemma.

"We think that the original building, built around 1967, did have privacy doors," Rappe said.

Yet, in 1977, a male student took the MCHS principal hostage at gunpoint and was later found hiding in a bathroom.

"As a reaction to that issue, after that had happened, the police suggested to the school district to take the partitions out. That way they could see someone hiding in there," Rappe said.

For a number of years, toilets in the bathroom were completely out in the open, without even partitions between stalls. Years later though, the violence concerns subsided and dividers went back in place.

"When they put those partitions back in, there were no screw holes or brackets for privacy doors — just dividers."

Rappe said finances are the real issue now because of building codes that would require the school to make major renovations if they want to make even minor changes.

"If you do any kind of major remodeling in a bathroom in a public setting like this, we have to do the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) requirements — that means wheelchair accessibility and all that," Rappe said.

Newer bathrooms in the "senior hall" do meet ADA regulations and have privacy doors in the stalls, Rappe said.

"If I have a wheelchair person at a ball game and they need an ADA-accessible bathroom, we take them down to that one," he said. "But that’s the only area that is ADA accessible."

Rappe said that for the time being, the school will continue to try to maintain the existing doors as long as vandalism doesn’t become an expensive problem.

"I’ve had this problem before in Grand Junction" he said. "The problem is always on the boys’ side. I think these are the same guys that grow up and shoot holes through stop signs. I can not figure out why they have to do that."