In September a trend began on TikTok encouraging vandalising and stealing things from school bathrooms. Many bathrooms remained closed until just before Thanksgiving break and students were confined to only the bathrooms near the main staircase at Lemont. 

The closures led to students having to walk down by the main staircase to use the bathroom, even from the fourth floor, which is relatively a long trek to just to use the restroom.

“All the bathrooms are open,” Assistant Principal Mr. Gagnon said. “The bathrooms have been open for about a week. I don’t think many people know about that.”

Although the TikTok trend led to some theft, the school did not really have much stolen. 

“I think a soap dispenser was stolen,” said dean Mr. Hammerschmidt. “It was more clogging the toilets and taking a door off of its hinges, stuff like that.”

It is a possibility that the trend could resurface and lead to the bathrooms closing back up. This would lead to having to go back to only the bathrooms by the main staircase. 

“We’re going to have to read the tea leaves and see what happens. If there aren’t any issues in terms of vandalism and destruction of property then the bathrooms will remain open,” said Hammerschmidt. “We can’t have the destruction of school property. That’s a problem.”

The deans feel it is better having all the bathrooms open so students can have quick access to the restrooms and have less classroom time taken away from them.

“We don’t like to close the bathrooms because as the deans we understand that it delays students from getting to use the restroom. If we close the bathrooms it’s going to take students more time to get to and from the bathroom which decreases time spent in class for students,” Hammerschmidt said.