AIBU - Toilet doors in school - are they optional?

[Liesovertheocean]

DS1’s school have removed the outer door on the boys toilets in one corridor in an attempt to stop the 6th Formers vaping in there. DS1 has always been fiercely private in this respect so will not use the toilets so has to wait until he’s near an alternative loo before he’ll go. To avoid drip feeding…so far as I can understand it you can’t see in to where the urinals are as a cubicle door blocks the view. Maybe it isn’t a big deal for most kids and I’m being a sensitive sausage but something sits wrong with me about removing a toilet door to tackle a vaping problem. So dear Mumsnet…please vote to help me gain perspective:
YABU - cost of living is spiralling, Russia’s poised to invade Ukraine and you’re banging on about a toilet door
YANBU - Toilet doors are not an optional extra and it’s a touch unreasonable to ‘punish’ all the boys because of the behaviour of a few

I hope they’re tackling the actual bullying behaviour as well as taking doors off hinges.

The ones at my dc's school have a door...but the wall between the toilet and the corridor is a window.

This is the standard arrangement at lots of places like service stations, airports, etc. It also means that after washing hands you don't need to touch any door handles on your way out. Can't see a problem with it really.

No I think the onus is on you to explain why you think it’s ok.

(I don’t mean justify it with reasons why it has to be done, I’m aware of all of those).

@TatianaBis

No I think the onus is on you to explain why you think it’s ok.

(I don’t mean justify it with reasons why it has to be done, I’m aware of all of those).

if you read the thread, you would have seen that not only it's ok, but it's better and SAFER for the children...

Why are you so against it?

Less chance to bully, skive, smoke, etc etc

@WallaceinAnderland

This is the standard arrangement at lots of places like service stations, airports, etc. It also means that after washing hands you don't need to touch any door handles on your way out. Can't see a problem with it really.

In airports etc… you might have no door but you also don’t have a view on the sinks etc…

Which means btw that having no door (in those places) offers no protection re gapping, bullying etc…

Why is it a problem to have a view of the sinks?

@Liesovertheocean I'm my son's uk high school the outer door into both the boys and girls toilets were glass so anyone could in. You could only see the sink area not the actual toilet and it prevented kids hanging around in there when they shouldn't be, staff can see what's going on when walking by etc.

This is fairly standard. Most new school buildings have this design. It prevents misbehaviour in the loos.

Do the cubicles have long doors, or the type with big gaps at too and bottom? If the former then it’s fine and actually safer to have no corridor door. But if there are big gaps above and below door and poo smell is wafting into the corridor then that is pretty gross.

In my school the toilets are all "open" to tackle this very problem. There are two small corridors of toilets, all separate cubicles but open plan so the sinks are all public. One side girls the other side boys.