Portsmouth High School has been dealing with bathroom vandalism and destruction for quite some time now, and students are fed up with the bathrooms always being closed. 

Aiden Medbury a junior at PHS said, “I have to walk 10 minutes just to use the bathroom for 2 minutes and I’m always late.” 

As of April 5th, both second-floor boys’ bathrooms are closed and one on the 3rd floor is closed due to malicious students breaking soap dispensers, drawing on stalls, and urinating on the floor. 

PHS senior Derek Yeager said,  “I have never seen anyone do it but I’ve seen afterward where the soap dispenser was broken and the toilet paper was everywhere” 

Due to multiple bathrooms being closed, many agree that the open bathrooms are now more overcrowded in between classes and even during class. With overcrowded bathrooms, students are now more likely to be late to class and miss important class time just because they have to walk in between floors just to use the bathroom. 

Not only has the vandalism annoyed students, but staff members are feeling this way well. Assistant Principal Shawn Donovan has been working with other administrators as well as the school resource officer to figure out who is doing this. 

Donovan said, “We rely on students a staff a lot to help us investigate because we can’t catch the person in the act it’s always after, so we really do rely on them reporting to us when it’s discovered as soon as possible so we can narrow down the time frames to see who is destroying the bathrooms.”

Administrators are having to search through 1100 students trying to figure out who it was, and it’s getting difficult and time-consuming for them. 

There have been about a half dozen students who have already faced punishment for these acts, and it’s clear that these individuals don’t realize that what they are doing is a serious crime causing thousands of dollars of destruction. It’s still currently happening, so we are asking all students to step up and help stop this so that the majority of students don’t have to deal with closed bathrooms anymore.