As students approach winter break and the start to 2026, some frustration has formed amongst students and faculty alike surrounding the continued bathroom closures around the school. With the school cracking down on hall passes and the amount of students out of class for certain amounts of time, having to walk across the school for the bathroom is a frustration many students relate to. However, having students deface school property and participate in illegal activities on school grounds is frustrating all the same. 

According to South Eugene principal Kee Zublin, the conflict between faculty and students as far as disrespecting school property goes is complex. On one hand, having to close multiple bathrooms at a time due to damage and prevention is difficult for faculty and costs the school money, which it doesn’t have to spare, and on the other hand students are upset with the impracticality of walking across the school for a restroom. 

The school has had to close many different bathrooms for a number of reasons in recent weeks but the primary one being vandalism and graffiti. Many bathrooms around the school, both men’s and women’s, have been graffitied with not only vulgar language but also targeted speech at certain students and even hate speech including hateful images. 

“If we have graffiti in our space, then it becomes seen as potentially condoned or permissible to graffiti in those spaces.” said Zublin, “We have seen that can cause it to run rampant.”

Hateful graffiti has no place in schools, especially when it’s being used to defile school property. However, the vandalizing goes beyond just graffiti. Students are going so far as to break windows, tear soap dispensers off of walls, clog toilets, take off bathroom stall doors, quite frankly students are doing anything you can think to destroy school bathrooms. 

When did it become acceptable in our minds to act this way in a public setting? How do students believe that this is normal or okay behavior to exhibit and what exactly does it say about South’s culture that students believe they can defile property to this extent? 

It’s no secret that South provides less consequence for incidents than other schools may, partially due to the lack of resources and supervision the school has. Personally, I feel the bigger issue than the lack of consequences is the fact that students seem to have completely forgotten how to behave in schools appropriately, and unfortunately South has failed to reprimand that behavior.

  Zublin also noted that he has had to close bathrooms recently due to illicit activities taking place. For example, he recently reopened the bathrooms across from the cafeteria which had been closed in hopes of lowering the amount of illicit behaviors taking place. The thought behind closing specific bathrooms is that hopefully students will be relocated to more supervised areas where they can be reprimanded, and Zublin seems to think this system did work, however, it’s not a permanent solution and thus, the bathrooms have been reopened. 

“We wanted to convey to our community that there will not be any tolerance for things like vaping in bathrooms and I do think that that message has been communicated,” Zublin said, “I don’t think that the problem is over, [andI think that people understand that it is not a condemned thing.”

When it comes down to it though, there’s a deeper issue here than students defacing school property and participating in illegal behaviour in bathrooms, and possibly this problem is connected to nationwide issues like chronic absenteeism or tardiness. Zublin noted the fact that schools everywhere have been struggling to regain students’ attention post-COVID and along with this some of the norms for conducting oneself in schools.

“Post-COVID, some of the norms of how we conduct ourselves have gone out the window,” Zublin said. “We really are collectively looking to reaffirm how schools are meant to operate and how we can be in community with one another.” 

Zublin doesn’t expect students to simply stop these behaviors overnight but he hopes that the South community can work together to be better when it comes to respecting our building and respecting one another. 

“I want us to take pride in this building. I take a great deal of pride in this building,” said Zublin, “We spend a lot of hours at school, and I want them to be pleasant hours.”

School may not be the place everyone wants to be everyday, no administrator is naive to this fact. However, we don’t need to make school a harder experience for others. It’s important to work together both as peers and as individuals preparing for the real world. The bathroom problems are just one example that is applicable right now, however the issue is beyond this. Students don’t often feel seen in school or connected to peers, especially post-COVID. Five years later and we’re still seeing the social repercussions that those years had on the youth. However, there’s other ways to connect than by getting into trouble that causes a hassle for students and faculty alike. 

“Come to school, be in community with us, go to your classes,” said Zublin, “If you need some form of support, come see an admin, come see a counselor. Let us know what you need. We’re here for you.”

Article by Maggie McMillen