This afternoon I walked through the Junior hall to the Freshman hallway, looking for a bathroom. It was locked. I walked upstairs to the Sophomore hallway bathroom, locked too I came all the way back to the Junior hallway bathroom praying that it was open. Although I hate that bathroom, it was the only one I could find unlocked. I got back to class not knowing that I was out for at least 10 minutes looking for a bathroom. My teacher and classmates all looked at me like I had an issue because I was out for so long.

The Board of Education and Mayor Bruce Packer sent a letter on April 24 to parents of Glen Rock High School students about drug use in school, sexting, house parties and underage alcohol use.

Will this letter really work? Doubt it. Will most parents actually talk to their kids about it? Probably not. That is not how it should be.

Parents, you need to talk to your children. There is only so much the school can do.

The school faculty can’t monitor the bathrooms with a teacher at all times, and it would be really hard to stop kids from doing drugs in school. It would be impossible for the administration to check every backpack, water bottle and bathroom while we are all in school.

If the administration can’t stop it, it’s up to the parents.

The school has locked the Freshman hallway bathrooms and the Sophomore hallway bathrooms. These are the ones that I mainly use, and they are the nicest and newest in the school. They used to be locked only during lunch because those bathrooms, I guess, were the ones people mainly got caught smoking or vaping in. But now, they are almost always locked due to students’ behavior in school.

This is overall a bad idea. Locking bathrooms will not stop students from smoking in school. There are plenty of other bathrooms to smoke in, so why do they only lock those two? It makes students take a longer break from class because they have to look for a bathroom and makes going to the bathroom more of a hassle for teachers because we could be out so long looking for an unlocked bathroom. It’s also become a great excuse for spending more time out of class.

Instead of locking bathrooms, what else could the school do? The faculty could try to ban water bottles or have random backpack checks. Yet these strategies will not work because most students don’t like drinking water from school fountains and backpack checks will take too much time out of the day.

At the end of the day, parents needs to help out and talk to their children. Parents need to stop their children from doing this because administrators can only do so much.