My grandchildren at OPRF High School both tell me that removing the bathroom doors didn’t change a thing, except get people riled up and put OPRF all over the local news, and not in a favorable light.
I’d like to suggest that the school test this proven alternative approach in one wing of the school. Put the bathroom doors back on, and pump into these bathrooms the most excruciating melody-free opera and Mahler musical works they can find — at volumes that noise canceling earphones won’t completely shut out.
Just as this sort of practice has ended or minimized loitering outside many bodegas, it very well might reduce or eliminate vaping, dope-smoking, and class-skipping in the test bathrooms. If successful, consider taking the practice schoolwide. And while the school is testing this concept, maybe ask the students what they think would work.
Who knows? They might actually have some effective ideas.
Dan Lauber
River Forest