As Taft enters a new season and nears the end of the semester, students have noticed a new system change after they came back from Thanksgiving break. All open bathrooms now require students to scan their ID’s to enter.
Now there are many different ideas students came up with as to why this was put into place. Taft student, Bernadette Martensen said, “I heard a rumor about it, I don’t know if it’s true or not, but supposedly they are emailing our parents if you use the bathroom more than twice a day.”
So does this mean that the entire student body thinks the same thing? This rapid rumor has been circling the halls, but no one really knows the actual truth.
Principal Mark Grishaber said, “The purpose of the scanners is so we can gather data to find out which bathrooms are being used the most, so if we need to open more we’ll open more.” He continued, “No data gets shared with anybody, parents or anything like that”
This quickly shut down the rumor and now informed students that this is in no way an invasion of privacy from parents.
As staff take the numbers of the students in the bathrooms, they track which bathrooms are being congested the most with the most people. That way security can open another bathroom near that area of the building. This way bathrooms are less crowded and more students can easily use the bathroom without being late for class.
Grishaber also added, “It can be beneficial moving forward, so I think it will be successful.”
Taquita Terrell, a security guard at Taft, mentioned, “I feel good about it, I think it helps all the students and staff.” She added, “It’s teaching a little structure, like you have to have your ID to come inside the washroom.”
Terrell as well as other staff and teachers have been noticing more students complaining about this new change, granted that a student does have to remember to bring their ID with them when they use the restroom.
“I always forget to bring my ID with me and I end up having to go all the way back to class to get my ID and at that point I just don’t want to go back, especially if the bathroom is far from my class.”
Since this system is fairly new, Grishaber didn’t have much further comment on how the progress is going or if they have run into any problems.
Overall from the thoughts that have been shared, the rumor isn’t true and the stations are solely for the purpose of data collection. This way Taft administration can jump on the opportunity to open more bathrooms and therefore help the Taft community and student body
