We all see it. We all hear it. But most of all, we all smell it: the construction in the former teachers’ bathrooms. According to an anonymous teacher, the bathrooms were in terrible condition long before issues arose. The bathrooms were described as old and disgusting, with floods being frequent. Before large-scale construction began, faucets were breaking, as well as individual stalls. This reportedly led to teachers frequently being late to their classes. Only once were both of the teacher’s bathrooms completely unusable were they closed, and teachers were given access to the bathrooms next to the auditorium as an alternative. Some teachers attested to this being uncomfortable since this bathroom was far from their classes, though they had no other option but to use it. When teachers were eventually given the former student bathrooms in the 700s wing, the situation significantly improved. Nevertheless, some teachers still believed that the administrators of the school could be doing more to improve the construction process, such as conducting the construction outside of school hours to avoid the putrid smell in the hallways. 

Dr. Vacca tells a similar story with key differences. He says that construction did begin in 2023 during the summer break. He says that the decision had been planned for years, “a few years ago we had updated the student bathrooms, so we started with those. The full plan was that in a multistage process, we’d be upgrading all of the bathrooms within the building. Because prior to that they were all original to the building which goes back to 1964.” He also mentioned that last summer demolition was done around the school and student bathrooms, “sometimes you don’t know that there are issues until you start to demolition the area, pull things apart, and realize that certain components need upgrading”. Dr. Vacca confirms that it has not been continuous due to disruptions in the process, such as issues with different contractors, in which delays were necessary to sort out the problems, and further pauses for inspectors. As for the smell in the hallways, he says that “once the pipes become exposed, there are gasses that tend to come into the air. They’re not harmful, but they do smell bad.” He elaborates, “Once you start changing the sinks and changing the pipes, some of those odors do come out”. However, according to Dr. Vacca, the pipe that recently burst was completely unrelated to the construction in the bathrooms, “That break occurred in the heating system above the hallways in the 800 wing. The reason that it occurred because the very low temperatures, mixing with the hot water in the pipes”. 

Though the conditions are substandard now, Dr. Vacca has good news for both the faculty and students alike: the construction should be done sooner than originally anticipated. Vacca states that “they should be done at the end of January”, if everything goes according to plan. In the meantime, we’ll have to be patient.