TOWAMENCIN  – It’s second period in C-pod; you’re sitting in chemistry on the verge of falling asleep; you need to get up to stay awake and move so you ask to use the bathroom. Hoping to escape the populated classroom, your hopes diminish as the bathroom stalls that share walls with gaps between the doors are all in use. You quickly do your business as the awkward silence between strangers fills the room, but at least the walk back to class is peaceful with no one in the hallway but you. 

Whether you are trying to get a breather from class or have to do bodily functions, there is a bathroom for you. I counted 18 bathrooms (9 men & 9 women) accessible to students; some are better than others. 

Although there are plenty of bathrooms to use, not everyone feels content with the state of the bathrooms and how unnerving they can be with multiple people inside. Zoe Hunsberger, a senior, shared her idea to fill the unpleasant silence. 

“North Penn bathrooms are at most times an awkward and uncomfortable experience for everyone. While teachers have their own peaceful, quiet bathrooms, students are confined to a few stalls with blinding lights and eerie silence. I believe that the bathrooms at North Penn would be much more comforting and less of a drag if there was light music playing in the background. Not only does music help stimulate students at school, but classical music is scientifically proven to help students relax,” Hunsberger expressed. 

While most people decry the conditions of the bathrooms, many are also quick to extol the virtues of K-pod, specifically the 2nd or 3rd floor. They are also the newest and biggest bathrooms, with the construction of the pod starting in 1997, and the women’s restrooms feature 6 stalls plus 1 handicapped one. 

Nathan Cho, a senior, who frequents K-pod bathrooms, expressed his admiration for the bathroom complimenting their interior and cleanliness. 

“K-pod bathrooms are the single best place at North Penn. They are a safe, private and comfortable area where you can do your business in peace…In regards to cleanliness, they are the most hygienic and aesthetically pleasing bathrooms in the building, especially compared to E pod bathrooms. The urinals have actual dividers and the stalls are always fairly clean,” Cho shared.

As another way to improve the North Penn High School Girl Up Club president and senior, Samiha Alam, commented on her plans as president to make feminine hygiene products, a basic necessity, available and accessible to those in need instead of girls having to use the outdated metal box in the wall that also required them to pay the small price of 25 cents that not many people carry around. 

“The three years I’ve been at North Penn, I’ve never actually seen the metal boxes in the girls’ bathroom actually have anything in them, and even if they did they cost 25 cents. I’d have friends text me and I’d need to leave class and walk to a different pod to help them, which is not only taking away from my learning but also my friends (not that I mind)…You could go to the nurse, but that’s all the way in the front of the building, and in a scenario like that it’s the last thing you want to do,” Alam stated. 

To those who do not menstruate, these may not seem like an inconvenience but no matter if it is a simple task like walking to a different part of the school to get a pad or tampon, it is going out of ones way, for something that should be provided as menstruating is a bodily function.

“I decided that one of the first things I’d want to do as president is put feminine hygiene products in the bathrooms that are free and accessible to anyone who might need one. This way it allows girls to not have to worry or stress about what might happen in case they’re stuck in a scenario without a pad or tampon, etc. In the future, I hope that the school itself will supply these and it won’t have to be a club initiative,” Alam declared.

There are a number of other ways to improve the state of the bathrooms such as changing out paper towels for hand driers as a more environmentally friendly choice but we should all be appreciative that North Penn has a variety of bathrooms (when they aren’t locked because people make mindless decisions) for us to use and a great staff that takes care of them.