Incidents are bound to happen all around campus, and a number of those happen in the bathrooms at Seminole. Students on campus use the bathroom when it is unnecessary. This is a problem for Seminole High, along with a number of other schools.

Students often ask to go to the bathroom as an excuse to leave class. Not all of the reasons for using this excuse are completely bad; the student may need a minute to themselves to gather their thoughts, or to adjust something with their clothing. But other times students are participating in events they know they shouldn’t be doing, such as arguing or fighting, or in some cases smoking.

Administrative Manager Sylvester Wynn says, “Yes, there have been cases of students smoking in the bathroom in the past. But there has not been any incidents of that so far. The consequences of this action depends on what the student was smoking. If the student is smoking [an illegal substance], we would have to inform the authorities and the student would be arrested and expelled from this school.”

During Seminole High’s homecoming week of November 2 – November 7, there were many suspicious activities on the campus of Seminole High. On November 4 fires were started in the bathrooms of Renegade, Tribe, and Warrior. Although students and parents were concerned about the events during that week, with the help of security, the janitorial staff, the administration at Seminole High, and the Seminole County Police, all of the situations were handled efficiently and nobody was harmed.

Students and their parents want to feel safe and protected while at school. Several students at Seminole believe that there should be security that monitors the bathroom.

Chalah Harris, a parent of a student at Seminole High, says, “If I send my daughter to school, I expect her to be safe there. I’m trusting the school to keep her safe and make sure she gets her education. So I expect them to take all the necessary measures to keep her safe. I feel like Seminole is a safe environment for my child to attend daily.”

It is unlikely that Seminole’s administration will be able to hire new staff members to monitor every bathroom, but there is a possibility that they could discuss installing cameras in some of the hallways. Installing security cameras in the hallways near the bathrooms to monitor who goes in and out would be one solution to bathroom security. Schools in Seminole County are already permitted to install cameras in the hallways, so it would just be a matter of buying the cameras and installing them.

Senior Samantha Ecker comments, “I think it would be helpful to use cameras to see like who is doing things they shouldn’t be. It would be an easy way to punish the students who are breaking the rules, instead of not knowing who was exactly involved.”

Even though there are some security issues on campus, we have still come a long way. Wynn mentions that according to the school administration Seminole is the best school in Seminole County.  

Wynn says, “Some of the worst things students have done in the bathroom is trash it, but there haven’t been any cases of that this year so we are doing better. I think the situations have gotten better because [of] the implementations of the procedures and the policies by our hired security. We have five security guards on campus during the day, all of them are watching 3,200 students everyday. We are the largest school with the lowest security problems. And that’s a fact, Jack.”