Closing parts of campus in response to JUULing is the wrong move

Students who have attempted to use facilities near the gym during lunch or tutorial recently may have noticed that they’re usually closed.

The bathroom and gym shutdown are part of the school’s response to a recently discovered JUULing problem, in which some students head to bathrooms to smoke e-cigarettes called JUULs. The closing of these facilities provides a short-term solution, but it also inconveniences innocent students in the process.

Students who just want to use the bathrooms during lunch have to travel across the quad to find an open one. Furthermore, access through the gym is blocked during and around lunch hours. This means that boys in the period 5 and 6 physical fitness classes are forced to walk all the way around the gym building to get to the lockers.

It’s bad enough that students who have nothing to do with the problem are being affected. But it’s even more ridiculous that the administration thinks locking a few doors will prevent students from JUULing. In fact, closing parts of the campus isn’t going to solve anything. The JUULers are likely to find somewhere else to feed their addiction. The solution that the administration has come up with also ignores the actual problem: the mindset of the students involved. Instead of striving to regulate and confront the JUULers themselves, the school is opting to cut off an entire piece of campus.

There was also a lack of discussion with students about this solution. At the very least, the administration could have informed students about the changes through email, or even the morning announcements, but not even this was done.

The recent policies implemented by the administration reveal much more troubling issues in the way they approach different problems around campus. The only way to really solve the problem is better monitoring of JUULing, through closer surveillance.

Equally important, the school can promote anonymous reporting and continue to educate students on the huge health risks of the habit for teens in classes such as Health and during the annual the Speak Up for Change week. In short, many other steps should have been taken first before cutting off a part of campus many students enjoy during lunch.