1978 Restroom Doors and Corvette in House

Restroom doors never struck me as a topic for a newspaper story, or an editorial before, not would I have thought that restroom doors could overnight become a major topic of conversation throughout the South Belt area.

Yet, there had not been one say since school started last Tuesday that I have not heard this statement or a close facsimile, "Did you hear what they did to the doors at Dobie?"

It seems that as long restroom doors are standing in place doing their job by obediently moving on their hinges, nobody talks about them. But just them be removed from those same hinges and suddenly they make news, everybody's talking!

So has been the case of the Dobie restroom doors this past week. 

When the students returned to school on Tuesday, they found the restroom doors had been removed from the girls' restrooms.

It is reported that the boy's restrooms are also lacking doors, a condition . . . .(lost below the fold)

Mr. Sory confirmed that the doors had indeed been removed, but the removing of the stall doors had been due to a communication breakdown between Dobie personnel and the custodians doing the work.

Instead of removing the doors, Mr. Sory reported that the custodians should have removed the doors going from the hallway into the restrooms. Since my conversation with Mr. Sory, the outside doors have been removed, on both the boys and the girl's restrooms.

The reason for the removal of the doors, according to Mr. Sory, is to discourage students from smoking. 

In a prior unsuccessful attempt to stop students from smoking in the restrooms, the girl's restroom stall doors have been modified, that is, cut down so that school personally may look into the stalls to check to see if the students are smoking. The doors remain modified. . . .

This has caused some problems, such as boys pushing other boys into the doorless girl's restrooms; confusion on which bathroom is which when the identifying signs were attached to the now missing doors, and feelings of "invasion of privacy" among the students. 

Granted, there is a brick wall blocking hallway vision into the restrooms, but it would appear that this same wall would also accommodate a place to hide behind and smoke, out of the sight of those patrolling the halls. 

The big question is, will the "modified open restroom concept" stop the smoking and, if so, does that justify the lack of privacy, and loss of dignity apparently being experienced by our 14 year old and up students?