After a couple of months of school, students have noticed cleanliness issues around the building, from messy bathrooms and hallways to certain smells. While some students think that WJ is pretty clean, others have different opinions.

“I feel like the hallways are pretty clean but the bathrooms are always a mess. I usually can’t stay in them for more than five minutes cause it always smells so bad,” sophomore Charlotte Kuperstein said.

Building services has tried to fix this issue by posting signs in the bathrooms urging students to clean up after themselves and not to vandalize or loiter in the bathrooms. While this might have worked to an extent, there is still a lot of work to be done to make the bathrooms cleaner and more hygienic.

Some students also have mentioned sightings of insects around the school and in the concession stands as well. Although building services have been trying their best to keep the school clean, their efforts are being washed out by students’ lack of interest in doing their part to keep the school clean.

“The school is kind of dirty because I have seen roaches around the school and at the concessions. The bathrooms also smell weird,” sophomore Yaslin Penya said.

Along with major concerns about the state of cleanliness of the bathrooms given the smell and insect sightings, students have complained that the smell of students smoking has contributed to the smell of the bathroom

“The bathrooms are really not pleasant to walk into because of the smell of people vaping and smoking,” sophomore Liza Bogdanovskaya said.

Administration has tried many different things to minimize the number of students smoking in the bathrooms by talking about installing vape detectors and having security monitor the bathrooms in between and during classes. They have also closed down certain bathrooms in the mornings to make sure that students aren’t tempted to go in and smoke.

The hallways and most areas of the school are clean and tidy. However, students feel the bathrooms need the most improvement to make them more clean and hygienic.

“The hallways are overall well kept, I just think that the bathrooms could use a little more work to be kept clean,” sophomore Lucia Kanazir said.