A recent survey of high school students shows that, when it comes to school restrooms, there’s room for improvement. One-half of students rate their schools’ bathroom facilities as fair or poor – an unwelcome increase of five percentage points since 2019. Only 18% view them as excellent or very good.

The fallout from poorly maintained restrooms can negatively impact students’ perceptions of school. The survey of high school students ages 14 to 18 found that 42% believe unclean restrooms reflect poorly on school management while 41% apathetically think there isn’t anything they can do about it anyway. 33% say messy restrooms lower their opinion of the school overall.