First semesters are typically humdrum—adjusting to a new course load and teachers, trying to find sports and clubs to join, and snoozing your alarm clock for the umpteenth time. You ride the bus, you go to class, you talk to your friends, go home, and spend the night suffocating on homework. But, to Maggie Walker students, the first semester was marred by the actions of a student clogging toilets on and off for weeks. 

The modus operandi of the clogger was shoving toilet paper rolls into the holes of toilets in order to cause overflowing—thus, leading to the failures of flush systems. Every clogging occurred in boys’ bathrooms, primarily on the second floor. Though the toilets were primarily clogged using toilet paper, the month of December saw a new MO: a computer charger was found shoved in a toilet. When the string of vandalism in the boys’ bathrooms ended before Winter Break, the total damages amounted to $8000. Though urinals and sinks remained unscathed in the conflict, the cost associated with repairing the toilets burdened the school, as it took away funds from important Governor’s School activities. 

Naturally, the cloggings caused dismay, particularly for boys desperately searching for a bathroom. V Lowden (‘25) describes the experience, saying “I’d be gallivanting around the school for, like, 15 minutes trying to find an open stall, and they just weren’t even open. It was so frustrating.” Ousmane Dieng (‘27) depicted the situation as an “absolute nightmare.” 

Dieng was not only frustrated by 3-minute bathroom trips turning into “entire scavenger hunts just to find a bathroom,” but also the impact he felt it had on his educational experience at Maggie Walker. He recalls, “One of my biggest motivations for getting into this school was the generous freedoms afforded to us students.” Like many of his friends, he became frustrated at his freedoms being stripped away from him due to the actions of a classmate. 

The faculty recognized students’ frustration, trying to address the issue through communicating potential consequences, reinforcing our community values, and interviewing those with potential leads. The Maggie Walker Security Team also stayed vigilant, reviewing security camera footage, as the administration tried to put a stop to the vandalism. 

Though the situation was debilitating for anyone using boys’ bathrooms, people using the girls’ bathrooms were left unaffected by the issue. Evelyn Batkins (‘25) reflects, “Just hearing [my male friends] complain about it is all the impact it’s had on me.” Some found the immature act, naturally, quite funny. “Personally, I find the whole situation … hilarious,” chuckles Regan McNulty (‘26). However, she does acknowledge that “it was good money [the cost of damages] that could’ve gone to a lot of different programs and helped in a lot of different ways elsewhere.”

Though they recognized the seriousness of the situation, some boys, too, found the situation slightly amusing, as if they did not believe it was the reality. Sayam Bafna (‘25) recounts his initial reaction to hearing about the bathroom vandalism, commenting, “I thought the bathroom vandalism was funny and didn’t think it was real.” He, unlike many of his peers, was “cool with checking out toilet paper.” Ultimately, as the vandalism worsened to something more damaging than a light-hearted prank, Bafna became tired of dealing with the bathroom vandalism, and is glad that “they [the administration] found the culprit.”

Despite students having varying thoughts and experiences, it didn’t stop people from speculating on how to address the issue. “If I had time to do this … I would’ve gone full on investigation on this!” declared Lowden. Unfortunately, as the clogging remained unchanged, the administration announced in the last week prior to winter break the adoption of a policy of “checking out” toilet paper with the coming of the new year. Fortunately, that policy was never adopted.

After a lengthy investigation, the administration did succeed in identifying the culprit and putting an end to the vandalism. At the end of the day, most everyone was relieved to see the end of such a polarizing event. “I don’t have to search the entire, like, seven seas for a bathroom anymore,” Lowden said.