A teacher’s voice reverberates throughout the classroom during a lecture. All is still except for the sounds of note-taking, scribbling of pencils on paper along with the tapping of keys. 

A hand pops up into the air.

All eyes turn to the student as the taboo question rolls off the tongue.

“Can I go to the bathroom?”

Going to the bathroom is a quiet topic, largely due to the unexplainable embarrassment that comes from it.

“Sometimes it feels like an invasion of privacy,” sophomore Mikayla Cleveland said. “It’s something that you usually do at home and it’s awkward in a public bathroom.”

Bathroom anxiety is common, according to Medical News Today, affecting 6.5% to 32% of people.

Even worse, students take advantage of bathroom trips, ruining it for others.

“People go in the bathrooms and just hang out in there, and it can make other people in the bathrooms feel self-conscious,” Cleveland said.

Trouble arising in bathrooms is usually students committing vandalism and vaping, which is why all bathroom doors are kept open. 

Others simply use the restroom as an opportunity to skip class, get on their phone, or roam the hallways.

Sophomore Caiden Harris doesn’t use the restroom at school.

“I think it’s annoying when I go into the restroom and there’s like 10 people in there just hanging out,” he said. “… They’ll go into the bathroom and then scold you just for using it.”

Sophomore Jaycer Smith had even more reasons to wait until he gets home.

“It resembles something like a Mad Max movie, honestly,” Smith said, whose mom, Dena, is the custodian in K hall. “Half of the time, you have people vaping in the bathrooms, and the other time, it’s just a mess of trash… 

“It’s a risk. It’s nerve-wracking. It’s a risk because there’s a bunch of kids, sometimes there’s fights … A lot of the time you just don’t feel safe.”

Smith says that quite frequently, there will be toilet paper hanging from the ceiling.

“How should I say this?” he said. “Being artistic doesn’t stop at the classroom door.”

This is why some teachers have restrictive bathroom policies.

“(The embarrassment from asking) is part of why my policy is where people don’t have to ask me,” said teacher Terri Moore, who teaches junior and senior English. “I just have bathroom passes up front. If you need to go, take it. … It works out well that way they don’t have to get embarrassed.”

Moore takes pride in the fact that she teaches good kids, and she trusts them to do what they’re supposed to.

“I think it’s a good idea to give teachers the discretion to have (bathroom policies),” Moore said. “There are certain classes and certain age levels that it might really be a problem to learning, so those teachers need to have the ability to limit.”

Other teachers believe that the policies placed for their classroom and blocks are based purely on trust and how well their students respect them.

“I’m going to trust my students until they do something to make me not trust them,” history teacher Shelby Kraus said. “When that time comes, then obviously I’ll need to make revisions just for that student, but I don’t think every student has to suffer because of one.”

About halfway through Kraus’ class, she gives students a three-minute break to use the restroom, get a drink and get on their phones. Outside of that break, she doesn’t see a student needing to use the restroom as a problem.

“I think each teacher is entitled to their own policies,” Kraus said. “I’ve never had a problem because there’s respect between myself and my students, and they don’t violate that. … I mean, either you’re going to trust your kids, or you’re not going to trust your kids.”