By Thomas Smith
Ponte Vedra High School has six bathrooms for students located on the campus. An intensive review evaluated the bathrooms around the campus, and the following criteria was evaluated: cleanliness, accessibility, water pressure, odor, and soap status. These restrooms are ranked based on what is the most comfortable for you to do your business.
Let’s start at the bottom of the list. The dirtiest and worst bathrooms on campus are the locker rooms, located near the gymnasium and the 500 hallway. These bathrooms get a lot of use and it shows. Multiple sports have practice before school and hundreds of students use this bathroom to shower and get ready for their day. The water pressure in both men’s and women’s locker room sinks is powerful, the water pressure is so high, water inevitably sprays all over your clothes when you wash your hands.
Going out of the 500s and straight across the courtyards you will run into the 300 bathrooms. These facilities are notorious for flooding and odor issues. These facilities are often closed for repairs, but students are grateful for the plentiful soap supply and sink space provided when the facilities are open and in working order. In addition to their inconsistent availability, these bathrooms are not easily accessible from most classrooms – to get to the bathrooms you must go outside. This is not the ideal place to go when you really need to go.
Continuing this trend, the restrooms near the cafeteria are also not your first choice. This bathroom is tiny. Both the mens room and ladies room can each accommodate four students at one time – not nearly enough considering the lunch hour rush. So, this location on campus may be convenient, it cannot keep up with the demand making it feel small, crowded, and grimy.
Moving upstairs we have the 600s, 700s, and 800s bathrooms. Everything upstairs is superior to their high-traffic downstairs counterparts. The 600s and 800s are a safe bet when nature calls during the school day. The 600s and 800s are clean and well stocked with toilet paper, soap, and paper towels. Students recognize these facilities are above average, and they try to flush and not leave a mess in the restroom. These bathrooms are always a safe resort and can be trusted not to disgust you.
The hands-down best bathroom break location on campus is the 700s hallway. This location is a clear winner as they are reliably clean, have ample soap and toilet paper and the water faucet does not give you a shower when you wash your hands. These bathrooms don’t smell horrible and are reliably open. The restrooms are close to the main entrance to the school and easily accessible once upstairs. This location is worth the walk if you have time.
Where you do your business during the school day is a personal decision. This ranking helps identify the best option considering the important criteria of proximity, cleanliness, odor and other key factors. But when you gotta go, you gotta go.
Pictured: PVHS 600 boys bathroom
