Want to Pee? You Can’t!
The bathrooms are officially closed for nearly 50% of the school day, distracting students from learning and risking health issues. Art / Photo: Avielle Krendel-Smyslov
By AVIELLE KRENDEL-SMYSLOV
Potty talk: something we are conditioned as kids not to do. However, if we plan to fix an issue at Midwood, we must. What issue you may ask? The infamous ten minute bathroom rule, which forbids students from using the restroom during the passing time between class periods as well as the first and last ten minutes of every class. This rule is unnecessary, a hazard to student health, and disruptive to a student’s education.
Practically speaking, for a student with seven classes, bathrooms are closed for 170 minutes (or about 49%) of their school day. But they still have just over half the day to use the restroom, so this isn’t too bad, right? Wrong.
“I think it's very inconvenient for many students, because it ends up being that the bathrooms are closed for 25 minutes at a time,” said Amalia Lebowitsch ‘24. “With the last ten minutes of class, the five minutes for the bell, and the other ten at the beginning, it really adds up. Not to mention, half the bathrooms are closed all the time and you have to run all around the building trying to find one. And if everyone needs to do this, then often people will never get their turn in class to go.”
This might seem like a minor inconvenience, but it’s actually a health problem. The Harvard School of Medicine says that holding your bladder could not only cause urinary tract infections, but could also “cause the bladder to stretch and make it difficult to contract and release urine. It also may increase the formation of kidney stones in people prone to having them.”
And what about the people who already have health issues?
Principal Robert Quinlan said, “Some students have paraprofessionals or other support staff that help them. Obviously, if students are experiencing some health concerns or emergencies, we can certainly accommodate that. We have multiple bathrooms in both buildings. So we are certainly accommodating to any student who may have a disability.”
Still, this rule could cause potential health issues, and many students complain that it infringes on their ability to learn.
Daria Temir-Bulat ‘24 said, “I believe that it causes issues in the learning environment because withholding a necessary function like using the bathroom makes it difficult to focus in class.”
So why is the rule in place?
Dr. Quinlan said, “It's a means of organizing a large building to ensure that students [are] in class, starting class or getting the homework assignment down, during the first and the last ten minutes. And it assists school safety — the deans, principals, or whomever — to ensure that students are moving from class to class.”
As annoying as the rule is, it seems to be the standard across most high schools in NYC. Pace, Frank Sinatra, Goldstein, Beacon, and Brooklyn High School of the Arts, among others, also have this rule in place.
So, is there a solution to this problem? There can be. Having administration (deans, assistant principals, etc.) near the bathrooms during passing and the first and last ten minutes of class can have the same effect as having the bathrooms closed. Administrators can ensure that no one is hanging out in the bathrooms while also providing students with the opportunity to use the restroom whenever they need to.
No adult would put up with this policy at their workplace, and there’s no justification for forcing students to just “hold it in” period after period. School safety doesn’t just come from decongested hallways, it also comes from prioritizing student health. Let’s find a way to fix this.