During the month of August, Bonita Vista High (BVH) students noticed that the school reverted back to physical hall passes after implementing E-Hall passes for the 2022-2023 school year. Without a transparent email informing students about the new changes, some teachers had to announce it during the class period.
This is BVH’s second effort in changing hall passes, without a clear reason to students for the changes. Despite the major changes following the new implementation of hall passes, BVH administration failed to communicate it to students and families. Assuming that every student checks the words written on the hall passes, five points are written on the blue laminated sheet, where the second point is crucial to note:
“Each student is allowed four hall passes per semester. After four hall passes have been used, all class time missed will be made up after school.”
The second point is something every student should be aware of, considering it applies to the entirety of the student population. However, out of 281 responses from a poll the Crusader conducted, more than half—176 students—stated that they were not aware of this updated policy.
On Mar. 21, 2022, the Crusader published the article “Severe vandalism causes BVH to close bathrooms,” where former Assistant Principal Esther Wise sent out a schoolwide Jupiter message. It informed students that the “only open bathrooms are those in the 300s and 500s for boys and the 300s, 500s and 700s for girls”. However, this year, students noticed how there is only one available bathroom open for both boys’ and girls’.
Students now have to experience the burden of walking to every bathroom in order to find an available one, which takes a longer time compared to when going to the nearest bathroom. This issue becomes especially prevalent during lunch or passing periods when the only bathroom available causes lines to form, creating more of an inconvenience for everyone. It is hypocritical for BVH administrators to advocate so heavily for a student’s education when time that should be used for learning is undermined by the time spent on looking and waiting for a vacant bathroom.
Along with affecting every student on campus, BVH administrator’s decision to close down bathrooms violates one of California’s policies. According to the California Legislative Information, California implemented Section 35292.5, where public and private schools are required to “keep all restrooms open during school hours when” students are not in classes and “keep a sufficient number of restrooms open during school hours” when students are in class.
Further mentioned in the article the Crusader published on the bathroom closures, bathrooms were closed due to vandalism and students “hanging out” in them. BVH administrators fail to understand that these same students can continue to find various ways to miss class. Essentially, these stricter policies affect the entire student population despite the positive effects not coming through.
After school, the Crusader holds late labs where staff members have the time to work on tasks for the publication after school. On Sept. 17, however, a staff member encountered an issue with the availability of restrooms on campus. All bathrooms located in the hallways were closed, leading them to ask a janitor for the location of an open bathroom. The response they received was that the only bathroom available on campus was the bathroom in the gym which was open solely due to a girls’ volleyball practice.
If the BVH administrators’ goal is to prevent students from loitering and conducting misbehavior in the bathrooms, then they must resort to a different approach that focuses on the students who are loitering rather than inconveniencing the entire student population. Because at the end of the day, from the same poll the Crusader conducted, out of 281 responses, 209 students have been affected by the lack of bathrooms open.
With the new policies and tighter regulations that were not mentioned to the entire BVH student population, BVH administrators must take into consideration the negative effects students face.
