Students shouldn’t complain about poor facilities

Going to the bathroom during the passing period has never been worse, trash, food, and graffiti plague the restrooms in the new facility. This is a regular occurrence now, oftentimes even affecting the smell of the entire building.

Since the first day I came to this school, I have heard people complaining about the quality of the facilities. Whether it was about the lack of air conditioning or the stalls that don’t lock, we had a reason to complain.

 Although for many many years nothing was done about this, the state has begun to hear our objections. Finally, the money was released through a bond designated to fix the existing problems and build a new fine arts center. Now, this is no easy task given that Bowie is built on 60 acres and is home to over 2800 students. For that reason, we were allocated $85,368,925. Just this November another bond was passed, this one a grand total of $2.4 billion designated towards campus improvements for Austin ISD, breaking records.

We got a whole new facility with great air conditioning as well as good bathrooms. One would think this would mean a decrease in trash and the destruction of the bathrooms. Despite this, every day the janitors have to go in and pick up the trash and scrub off the graffiti.

This is a massive problem for not only the staff but also the other students. Oftentimes you cannot even use the restroom because of the state that it is in. It’s hypocritical for students to complain about the old facilities and then trash the new ones as soon as they are made available. We cannot have it both ways. The utter disregard for the cleaning staff’s time is out of control. It not only wastes time but also money. The supplies for cleaning as well as labor time is a huge cost.

There must be a solution to these issues. Oftentimes students don’t take well to administrators telling them not to do things, just seeing it as another adult creating more rules. For that reason, I believe we should have someone from our student leadership talk to the students through the announcements. Our president or other council members could be a good choice, after all it was the student body who elected them. 

Another solution could be to get more trash cans and station them in more accessible places. A large part of the waste issue is people being too lazy to walk somewhere and throw their trash away. As ridiculous as it may seem, an increase in trash cans may help minimize the amount of food and other objects being left on the ground. It’s that it is not everyone who is doing this. 

The shame is that a select few are making the area not enjoyable for the rest of the school. Now that we are no longer allowed to eat in the academic halls that are the main lunch area aside from the cafeteria. 

We students should have a commitment to keeping it nice for the next people to use it. That being said, if nothing changes then we have no right to protest when we are the party causing it.