Thunder Ridge High School has  recently taken the bathroom doors off of all of the men’s restrooms. Apparently, they did this to keep boys from vaping in the restrooms.

    Thunder Ridge resource officer Deputy Downey stated, “The decision was made between the administration, the head custodian and [myself].”

    I get it, there are teenagers vaping. But there are better ways to handle the situation, then to take away boys only place for privacy during the school day.

    There have been plenty of girls that vape too, but they didn’t do anything to try and stop them. Even if they did do something about girls vaping, I don’t think taking off the restroom doors would be a good solution.

    When asked about boys vs girls vaping, Deputy Downey said, “The vaping problem is growing among all groups with males and females both getting in trouble regularly.  It is difficult to say that it is more of a problem with a single group because we are seeing it across all groups at TRHS.”

    Also, is it okay to  punish all the boys for something very few people do? Why not punish the kids actually doing it?

    What I don’t get is why the school doesn’t treat all teens the same? It’s very awkward walking past the restroom. You can hear everything going on in there. And I mean, everything.

     I believe that both bathrooms should have doors. A solution might be to enforce the rules more. If you’re caught with a vape pen, then make the punishment worse. Don’t just punish all the boys.

     According to Deputy Downey, “The consequences for being in possession of a vape device are two-fold.  First there are the school consequences that usually involved 3 to 5 days of suspension.  Then there are the legal consequences of receiving an infraction citation for $74.00. It is similar to a speeding ticket in that the person cited can simply go pay the citation or appear in court on the date specified on the citation.”

    Teenagers should have at least some form of privacy at school. We need the door back on the bathrooms.

     All I’m asking is that we get the doors back on the bathroom, because I don’t vape. Many of the boys in school don’t vape. Why should we be punished for something we never did?