An MCHS student waddles down the hallway toward the fourth-floor bathrooms. He has to pee really badly, but when he approaches the bathroom, he notices the door is locked. He swears loudly before waddling toward the stairwell, hoping that another bathroom is open on the third floor.
During the 25-26 school year, the Freshman Campus bathrooms have been closed a number of times on different floors. Sometimes the school has closed them because of vandalism, including peeing on the floor and walls. Other times, it is because students are smoking or vaping, and the school doesn’t want kids to gather in that space.
“Yesterday, we had a ton of kids that I happened to have to process with vapes,” assistant principal at MCHS’s Freshman Campus, Leah Pietraszewski, says. “So we might say, ‘Hey, let’s close this one to kind of see who’s going where and kind of monitor it more that way.’”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1.63 million students self-reported that they used e-cigarettes in 2024. This included 410,000 (3.5%) middle school students and 1.21 million (7.8%) high school students.
“If a student has a THC vape,” Pietraszewski says, “which also, unfortunately, is common, page 39 states that that falls under the drug and alcohol policy, that’s equivalent to bringing a bottle of alcohol”.
According to the MCHS 2025-26 Student Handbook, there are three offenses, the first one being one day of Alternative Learning Center, mandatory enrollment in the vape education program and parent contact. The second one is two days of Referral to the SRO. The third one is Referral to Prevention and Wellness Coordinator.
“I think it is affected because we are deterring people from using a specific bathroom and making them go elsewhere,” police officer for the city and high school, Alberto Martinez, says, “where we have supervision to make sure that vandalism and other activities aren’t taking place.”
Officer Martinez added that if students vandalize school property, it is a crime called criminal damage to state-supported property. Keeping a look out on students who go to the bathroom is very helpful in catching those who vape.
“Regarding FC vaping,” Dean at Upper Campus, Jordan Deener says, “here are the numbers for 24-25: 22 Nicotine Vape violations, 12 THC Vape Violations.”
“So far this year for 25-26, [we have had] 20 nicotine vape Violations [and] 16 THC violations,” Deener says.
As stated by Smart Pass, vandalism can cause much harm to students, and it can be very uncomfortable to use the bathrooms. They also share that it is a hazard to students or staff using the bathroom.
“Vandalism is hard for us to solve,” Deener says, “but here are the numbers: for 24-25 [we had] 6 incidents, and 25-26, [we’ve only had] 1 incident”.
When the student walks to the third-floor bathroom, he gets frustrated and squirms away to the stairs, in hopes of his last option. As he’s walking, he wonders about why the bathrooms might be closed and realizes that students who vape in the bathroom cause many problems for the students who have nothing to do with that. He knows that it’s only because the school wants to keep everybody safe, but he still believes it’s a little unfair to others.