School officials took down the mirrors in the school bathrooms in mid-November, leading to backlash and confusion among teachers and the student body. Principal Crosby Carpenter explained exactly why the school in the first place decided to take down the mirrors.
“Bathroom mirrors were taken down for safety issues as they are glass and can harm the students. They were also causing many distractions for students and caused them to miss important class time. To solve this problem we decided to put metal mirrors outside the bathrooms instead. We’re waiting on facilities to install them,” he said. He didn’t give an exact reason as to how the metal mirrors will solve the loitering problem. However, some staff at Terrace have disagreed with this view.
“I am indifferent about the matter; there is no real need for a mirror in a bathroom, but I don’t think there’s a reason to take them away. I think this is an example of a few bad apples ruining the entire apple tree,” history teacher Adam Bazant said. “Instead of taking away the mirrors, we should be enforcing the bathroom spending time. This issue here isn’t the mirror, it’s the lack of enforcement for the time spent in the bathroom.”
ASB adviser Jonathan Schaeffer said, “As a staff member my greatest concern is the teenagers that want to socialize in the bathroom… that’s just weird.”
Some others seem to be mixed about the issue. According to math teacher Brandon Okazaki, “I think it should help, but I also haven’t seen a real change in bathroom time, I don’t think the mirrors change much, I mean, maybe in between class times like the 5 minutes in between classes, but I really don’t think it will keep people in class, I’m hoping it will but I’m just not sure.”
Additionally, students like Junior Class President Sophia Suciu have mixed feelings.
“I’m mixed because I want the mirrors back, but I feel like people are loitering less now, like I know a lot of people can use the mirrors for doing their hair and makeup and that can take up time,” Suciu said.
“But also like I don’t really think mirrors being gone will stop people from hanging out in the bathrooms because we have phones, I think the idea about putting metal mirrors up is good though.”
Junior Brooklyn Bender had similar thoughts.
“I don’t like it, but I get it because people wanna take mirror selfies.”
“I think that taking down the mirrors serves no real purpose,” said junior Chip Gilstrap. “It won’t minimize any bathroom spending time.”
Another student here at Terrace, senior Gabrielle Palma voiced a strong opinion on the matter.
“It makes our school look awful. If you’re a new student coming here and see no mirrors in the bathroom, it just looks like our school is a prison,” Palma said. “It also makes no sense because we can still use our phones, anyways it’s not a good solution at all. And it’s unfair to the students.”
