Students shared stories about how this affects them personally in their day to day life. Some felt the atmosphere of the hallways has changed.

“It’s gross,” said McKenzie Robeck. “Everyone can hear you and it’s embarrassing.”

“I don’t think that the school taking the doors of the bathroom off is going to stop students from vaping,” said Serenity Simmang. “It’s just going to provoke it more. I see more vaping now that the doors are off.”

Read more: Did removing the doors solve the problem?

“I don’t see how this is going to help at all. It’s only going to make the vape smell go away faster,” said McCormick Merges. “No matter what the school does, kids are still going to vape. Punishing everyone because a couple of kids vape isn’t solving anything.”

One student is stepping up to fight to get the doors back and show the negative impact of taking the doors off. Senior Teagan Woods is working to help students and administration work together more effectively. She has opened a survey and petition on the subject of bathroom doors. You can take the survey here and can sign the petition here as well.

Woods says that last year students had a much better relationship with the administration than this year. Students have said that they feel ignored and not trusted.

“Instead of approaching, the culture of BHS as a whole punishes the students and doesn’t listen to them,” said Woods.  “As far as I can tell, it is sending a message of distrust to students, and they feel less comfortable and less safe than they did before.”

This has been one of many changes over this school year. Over the summer, different security systems have been added to some doors. This combined with the recent announcement of next year’s schedule and policy changes have many students on edge and worried about the future.

“With the changes in schedule and the bathroom doors, they didn’t notify students, they simply did it and students had to reconcile with that with no reason given why they did it, no explanation,” said Woods.

Some students have been worried about security and comfort of a basic human right.

” I personally have been wanting to do data collection from students to be able to see a change through data.” said  Woods. “I would ask about this because I do not know if the administration is doing this. They have not said anything. But if they do something like this, somebody better be collecting data, somebody better be showing the effects.”

Students are encouraged to talk to staff and administration. This is our chance to make a difference in our school. Teagan Woods has been leading the charge and encouraging other students to talk to the administration. “If students agree with me, they should make their thoughts known. They can always e-mail the administration.”

“I think we have an amazing administration. They have shown they want to work with us, and they want to listen to us. This is something we have heard every year. We have a duty as the students to hold them to that standard.”

“I would assume it would go to the school administration,” said Sophomore Grace Borgerding.

Many students said that they didn’t know and didn’t really have a good idea. Gary Kawlewski, a Certified Administrator of School Finance and Operations clarified on this question.

“The parking permit fees go into the general fund as one of a host of revenue sources to pay for the cost of running the school district,” said Gary Kawlewski.

Principal Mark Mischke clarifies this even more.

“[The funds] go to two main pieces,” Mischke said. “One, sustainability of the parking lot, and also to hire our supervisor for the parking lot and our school resource officer. They go to offset the costs of having somebody out there supervising to make sure kids and their cars are safe.”

Students were also asked what they would change about the parking permits and their policies.

Junior Ty Zwack said, “You should only have to pay to park in the winter to help pay for the plows. Otherwise, there doesn’t seem to be a purpose. Some students say that $50 can be a steep price for parking at school.”

When Mischke was asked what he would change about the school parking lot parking permit regulation, he said, “If we didn’t have a financial issue, I would have it be as open as possible, but in reality, we have the lowest [parking] fee in the area.”

“If you pay for something, you pay more attention,” Mischke said. “If you know that you are paying for something, you are more attentive to it.”

Other districts, especially in the cities, use a very different system for figuring out who gets parking spots.

“Some schools [such as Edina] have tiny parking lots, so they charge $250 and it’s more of a lottery,” Mischke said. “Only seniors and maybe juniors can get in. The ability that we have for students to park here is awesome compared to other schools.”

The parking permit price has not changed in 11 years, according to Mischke, and it looks like there are no plans to change it any time soon. Kawlewski solidifies this by saying, “No decisions have been made about changes to any fee structures for the 19-20 school year.”

“This year we had the unique opportunity to go to State and beat Watertown. That was one of the big accomplishments that I think everyone felt,” said Senior Emilee Feldman, who has been on the team for four years. “We really put in the effort and work needed to get there.”

What is more amazing is the family aspect of the team. “The day before we competed against Watertown, our biggest rival, we all stayed after school and had a night practice. It was fun not only to work hard, but then also receive the payoff of hearing the judges say ‘Buffalo wins,'” said Emilee.

“As with any team, the biggest thing for me is the family aspect. You spend so much time with each other you really get to know everything about them and how to work with them.”  “No other team clicks quite as well as the members of mock trial.”

In this year’s mock trial team, there are 8 seniors out of 9 members, making this their last year on the team for almost everyone. “I think I’ll miss everything. Even now that mock trial is over, the team is already grieving in a way. You spend so much time and you work on the case so hard, and then all of it ends up not mattering because it was just for fun,” says Emilee. “My team is my family. And even though we are all still in school, you can’t really ever recreate that atmosphere.”