Half of my job is expressing empathy and shared frustration at the bathroom situation and letting them know I am trying my best. I am a brand new teacher that’s taken on a class that hasn’t had an every day teacher since September … bathroom bullshit is the bane of my existence. This issue has also made me reflect on just school design/architecture in general. Our school building is over 100 years old and while it is a really charming and interesting piece of history, it’s design is not for the modern era. The bathrooms are all down long hallways with locked doors on the end. The bathrooms aren’t always unlocked during passing period. Some of them are and some of them aren’t. So imagine you’re a kid and you’re trying to do the right thing and go during passing period. You walk down a hallway, locked bathroom, you have to walk all the way back to the stairwell and then down another stairwell. What if that one is locked too! Now you have to try a third floor and make it to class in 6 minutes? It’s madness actually…