In the past month students have felt the consequences of others when the third floor, south-side bathrooms were closed due to vandalism.
Security guard Jim Jenkins stated that the vandalism was a sign of “delayed maturity” and was not in just the third-floor bathrooms but continued in all of the bathrooms throughout the school.
Jenkins specified that by using the hallway video cameras, the security guards have been able to catch the culprits of the past occurrences of vandalism.
“Between the time I go into the bathroom and [the vandalism] is not present and when Greg goes in and it is present, we are able to look back at the video and see who [has gone in] and [figure out] who we trust and who we do not,” Jenkins said.
Staff members are not the only ones able to make an impact on the school. Security guard Greg Royal says that the majority of the vandalism reported comes from the student body.
“[They are caught] by other students mostly. The [other students] care about their school, they are good citizens and they report these things. We try to keep these [reports] 100 percent anonymous –¬it is just students reporting other students’ behavior,” Royal said.
Due to past records and the severity of the damage to the bathrooms, the punishment handed out to the students faulted often varies. Vice Principal Maija Thiel expanded on exactly how severe the punishments can be for students.
“If we catch the students with enough evidence of vandalism we can actually charge them [for destruction of property],” Thiel said.
Jenkins also stated that the administrators make attempts to help the students understand that their actions do not only affect them but the entire student body and community as a whole.
“When the bathrooms need to be fixed and cleaned, it takes time out of other people’s schedules to do so,” Jenkins said.