The Juvenile Menace

When I first learned about Passaic Valley’s new bathroom policy involving ID scanning and locked bathrooms, I immediately thought of the song “Privilege to Pee” from Greg Kotis’ musical “Urinetown.” The musical is a satirical comedy, following a dystopian world where, due to water shortage, private bathrooms are outlawed, and citizens must instead wait jittery and cross-legged in long lines to use corporate-owned restrooms. Strictly monitored by police, anyone who uses these restrooms must adhere to strict time limits and write their names in record books. Although we don’t have a water shortage, we do have chronic class absenteeism, which includes extensive bathroom breaks. And alas (to quote “The Privilege to Pee”) our “politicians in their wisdom saw that there should be a law.”

The new bathroom policy requires students to have their ID’s scanned by a bathroom monitor before and after use. These bathroom monitors are teachers who spend one 45-minute period each day seated in student desks outside the bathroom, equipped with a computer and laser-scanner. Before and after each shift, teachers must retrieve and return this equipment from the main office, so that it may be used by the next rotation of teachers guarding the bathrooms. Because setting up and dismantling equipment takes some time, and teachers may be late arriving to bathroom duties, students are not allowed to use the bathroom during the first and last ten minutes of class, as well as in-between classes. During these times, teachers are advised to keep the bathrooms locked.

The reasons for the policy is understandable. There have been countless instances where students were caught vaping or engaging in other forms of debauchery in the restrooms. Many students are taking advantage of the freedom to leave class and end up spending much of that time socializing in the bathrooms.

Yet, the policy is impractical and counterintuitive for countless reason. In the case that students arrive at the bathrooms before the bathroom monitors, they must stand there, stranded in wait, for a benevolent teacher with the magic key to grant them relief. This has happened to me and a few friends a couple of times, turning what would be a quick process into a tedious, uncomfortable ordeal, eating up far more class time than it should. The inability to use the bathrooms between classes or within the first and last ten minutes is also counterintuitive, as these are precisely the times where students would miss the least amount of material. For example, I’d often arrive to class early, go to the bathroom before the bell rang, and be back in class by the time everything had settled down and the lesson was just about to start. This is no longer a possibility, as, instead I have to uncomfortably wait for the first ten minutes of class to pass, and then spend the rest of the class period calculating the best opportunity to leave the room where I’d miss the least amount of information. In the case this opportunity does not arise, I must wait until the next class period. Or the next.

Although the first and last ten minutes of class are logistically the most convenient times to use the bathroom, many students often take advantage of these windows to either leave class early, or leave the class at the beginning of the period and be gone for the duration of the class. The logical solution may be to restrict students from using the bathrooms at this time, especially since there are no adults to monitor them (again, it takes teachers time to set up), however, this ignores two important facts. One: many students who leave class to “use the bathroom,” usually never end up going to the bathroom. They have favorite spots in the school that they visit, they walk around the halls, or they go visit other classes for the few moments before they are asked to leave. Two: although many students use the bathroom as a social point, most students use the bathroom to, well, use the bathroom. And denying students use of the bathroom when they need to is actually a pretty serious health hazard.

Bathroom restrictions are more or less outlawed in the labor field. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, places of employment are required to provide toilet facilities “so that employees will not suffer the adverse health effects that can result if toilets are not available when employees need them.” Some of these health effects, brought on by voluntary urinary retention, include urinary tract infections.

For this reason, the OSHA often stands by employees when they have sued their companies for bathroom policy limitations. In one instance, employers of the WaterSaver Faucet Co. filed a complaint after 19 employees were disciplined for “excessive bathroom usage,” after transgressing their 30-minute-a-week allowance (six minutes a day). This was after the company installed a tracking system which required employees to scan their ID’s to access bathrooms. Sound familiar?

Logistics and statistics aside, my greatest grievance against this bathroom policy is its moral, humanitarian issue. Although the policy was most-likely well-intentioned, it carries some serious implications.

Relieving oneself is one of many basic human needs. Unlike others, though, this particular need has been historically used as an instrument of abuse. In the case of Sylvia Likens, a young girl who was tortured to death by her guardian the guardians’ children, one of her guardian’s favorite method of torture was restricting Likens’ bathroom privileges. This is because denying someone the right to pee is a manipulative method to dehumanize. It asserts control. The victim must vie with the humiliating possibility of urinating on oneself, and so must fall into complete submission to the authority who might grant them that privilege. In such, the power dynamics between the subordinate and the authority are articulated, and the victim’s position as an inferior is reified.

Regardless of the extremity of denying someone their rights to use the bathroom, any restrictions carry these same undertones. Students feel humiliated, animal-like—savages who cannot be entrusted with bathroom use at their own discretion. Not to mention the fact that the bathroom scanning information is then compiled in a handy, easy-to-use application, where teachers and administration can track their students’ bathroom patterns. Which is just creepy and wrong in so many ways.

The policy is also humiliating to teachers. As I was walking down the hallway one day, I overheard a teacher say, “Hey, I could work at Shop-Rite!” after scanning the student’s ID. Teachers, too, are stripped of their dignity, as the money and time spent on degrees and teaching certificates are reduced down to scanning student ID’s.

It may seem a very extreme notion—that the very act of monitoring someone’s bathroom patterns can cause them to take on an inferior unconscious role. However, psychological studies have proven time and time again the correlation between environment and behavior, especially on the unconscious brain. People are tidier when they are exposed to the faint aroma of cleaning fluid, and become more competitive at the sight of a briefcase. In one study, when subjects were either given a hot or cold cup of coffee, and asked to assess an individual’s character based on a text they read, students who were given the hot cup of coffee perceived the individual to be warmer and friendlier than those with the cold cup.

People, especially students, are susceptible to the environmental influences. So when the school fosters policies which are degrading and humiliating, students will internalize this and act accordingly. If students are made to feel like they are caged-in, why shouldn’t they submit to the role of animal?

Students are impressionable, and much of the skills and social reasoning they will use for the rest of their life are learned through schooling. Policies which condition students to accept violation over their basic needs, self-respect and decency, creates a poor foundation. When degradation is internalized, it depletes one’s sense of dignity, and allows for a greater tolerance of injustice in the future.

Sadly, class absenteeism is an issue. However, there should be greater dialogue around why these issues exist. Are students leaving class because they are overwhelmed by the class material, in which case they could benefit from tutoring in order to improve class engagement? Does the class material or curriculum need tweaking? Are students leaving class on account of bullying, or perhaps due to external factors which turn them off from school altogether? Resorting to discipline in issues like chronic class absenteeism does nothing to acknowledge or attempt to fix the many factors which might create these problems in the first place. Instead, it further delineates the divide between students and faculty, eliminating the possibility for empathy or trust. An environment where students’ bathroom patterns must be monitored cannot be one which encourages mutual respect between students and faculty. Yet, these things are crucial in creating a welcoming environment where students feel safe and engaged in learning. Without it, the school environment can feel like it’s teetering into totalitarianism, where faculty become the authority, and students become the recalcitrants who must be controlled.

Hopefully, dialogue can be created, and steps be made to try to tackle the root causes of chronic class absenteeism, in ways which won’t invariably punish every other student in the school. Until then, I must continue crossing my legs in math class, and pass sympathetic looks to the teachers stationed outside the bathrooms, hearing the lyrics of “Privilege to Pee” run through my head, as I imagine the bathroom monitors singing: “I run the only toilet In this part of town, you see. So, if you've got to go. You've got to go through me. It's a privilege to pee.”

Welcome young ones from the Passaic Valley area to the Juvenile Menace, a blog created by the fiery youth, for the fiery youth!

We celebrate autonomy and choice, and believe that young people should be equipped with the resources and information to feel empowered enough to make those choices.

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