With just four bathrooms in the C wing of the school, there are limited options for students that need to use the facilities. But on some days, that number is lower at the end of the day as some of the bathrooms are cleaned and locked before school is out, leaving students sometimes searching for a place to go.

“Being a supervisor in the building, it’s not something that we want,” assistant principal Phil Brown said. “There are restrooms that are opened. Generally we try to start from the restrooms down, to make sure that kids exit and leave. There are ones here for kids who are here for tutorials, but generally we try to keep it so that kids aren’t just going to the restrooms, hiding out, and waiting for lack of supervision.”

However, with only one bathroom down each C hall, a locked door in a time of need can be troublesome for students.

“I have to walk longer when the bathrooms are locked and that’s really inconvenient as I need to get the business done quickly,” sophomore Nikhil Yerva said. “It’s important not to lock the bathrooms before school is over because bathrooms are part of your school life and to be able to take advantage of that resource, we need to make sure that the bathrooms aren’t closed before school hours.”

It may not be an ideal situation, but one that can’t be helped due to an apparent custodial staffing issue.

“The reason why we lock those restrooms, that’s because this year, we’re missing three people and the past year, every year, we lost one, so by the time be that we opened this school, we lost five people,” custodian Martin Pineda said. “It’s one of the reasons why we’re trying to do a little bit before everyone leaves so that’s the reason we clean those restrooms after 3:00 p.m. Before 3, those restrooms are still unlocked to use, but we left some restrooms for everybody to use.”

Although some of the bathrooms aren’t locked until after school, one locked bathroom in the wrong place at the right time can lead to a greater sense of urgency.

“Right after school, I usually don’t use the restroom, but what a lot of people are complaining about is 4th period,” junior Mario Puerto said. “So if you’re in the middle of a test, like I have been before, or if you’re just in class, it makes you work harder so you can go.”