While looking back on the grade level assemblies held during the first week of school, assistant principal Jessica Busse said that despite initial backlash to the policies. She thinks after the transition period there will be more acceptance.

“We have had mixed reviews but I am excited about some of the responses and individual conversations that we have had with students,” Busse said. “Change is hard but I think in the end everyone will understand that it is for the best and we will get there together.”

Busse said the main goal of the new pass policy is to keep students in class while understanding extenuating circumstances.

“The place to learn is in the classroom. So we are asking that teachers do not use passes for bathrooms or going to your locker,” Busse said. “If there’s a need to use the restroom we will, of course, honor that. But that it’s not a regular thing.”

Assistant principal Todd Goggleye said the administration does not want to prevent students from using the bathroom, rather they want to encourage the use of it solely for its intended purpose.

“It’s not like we want GLCs holding students’ hands to the restroom. It’s more like we have the GLCs positioned in different parts of the building, so they can just walk down to a classroom,” Goggleye said. “We want to make sure that students have the opportunity to use the restroom and not be intervened with.”

Junior Raina Kronfeld said she sees errors in the new bathroom policy, particularly from a privacy standpoint. 

“I think that the fact that a GLC has to walk you to the bathroom is a really big invasion of privacy. There’s a lot wrong with the policies,” Kronfeld said.

Busse said there have been some errors in the consistency of the policies’ details between the staff and administration, but the bottom line is “essential passes” only.

“There are some questions of consistency. The message has been different from teachers to administration. We are stressing essential passes only which does not mean no bathroom passes,” Busse said.

According to Busse, staff members are not required to call a GLC to escort a student to the bathroom. 

“(Teachers) don’t necessarily have to (call a GLC). If they have a concern about the student doing it on a regular basis or they think there is something else going on then they can call a GLC,” Busse said.

However, students have noted a few errors in judgment in the new policy. Kronfeld said the new policy of having GLCs escort students to the bathroom in place of passes makes her feel uneasy.  

“All the GLCs are men and if they have to walk a girl to the bathroom and just wait outside that’s so uncomfortable and just feels wrong,” Kronfeld said. “I will never ask to go to the bathroom during class because I don’t want to be put in that situation.”

According to Kronfeld, the lack of unlocked boys’ bathrooms is an additional obstacle for her male classmates when attempting to use the restroom. 

“Usually a lot of the boys’ bathrooms are locked and that has them running around the school so that (policy) is unfair for them too,” Kronfeld said.  

According to Busse the changes in policy will be reevaluated at the end of the quarter, adapting the rules based upon responses from staff and families.

“All of the policies and practices have come from teachers, so we adopted them based on teacher student and parent feedback,” Busse said. “We are working with the staff, and a commitment we made to the staff was that we would review all of them at the end of the quarter.”

Principal Scott Meyers said he hopes to approach these changes in the beginning of the year while remembering some of the issues the administration has faced in the past. 

“We want to intentionally make a shift of, how do we positively talk about what park pride is, and incorporate that into our first conversation about behavior issues that we’ve had in the past,” Meyers said.