At the start of each school day, students and staff enter a clear and tidy building; however, as the day progresses it’s not uncommon to find garbage in the hall, the locker rooms, the bathrooms, and the stairs. It seems as though some students feel its ok to treat West as one big garbage can. There is much disrespect for the school coming from the students who see the school as their personal dumping ground. No one wants to go to a school that’s covered in litter. This disrespect makes the school disgusting and it makes West look bad when other people visit.

Since the beginning of my freshman year, I have always seen garbage littered throughout the school. I often see teachers, security, maintenance, and some students picking up litter scattered about. When guests come to our school and see this, they judge us and assume we’re all lazy. Some of the students are so lazy that they just leave their trash all over the school. Some people need to get over their laziness and immaturity and be more respectful.  “People are ignorant and don’t know how to act their own age,” says sophomore Chris Nero. Littering in  the school is also a safety hazard because I have seen people nearly slip on food wrappers in the hallway because of people’s laziness.” All of this ruins our schools image.

Even more disgusting than the garbage on the floor are the bathrooms. “I hate walking into the bathroom because the smell makes me want to throw up,” says sophomore Desiray Keigan. Students have complained that others don’t always flush the toilet. Some students also litter toilet paper throughout the bathroom. What I don’t understand is why people can’t flush and not leave a mess. It’s not funny when you decide to leave a mess in the bathroom stalls. It’s immature and it doesn’t help improve West’s image. Our school staff works hard to keep the building safe and clean for us daily, it’s completely disrespectful to act this way.
There are possible solutions though. Some solutions for this problem could be placing more garbage cans around and students should be given consequences when caught littering in the hall. Getting rid of the disrespect problem will make the school cleaner and it will help improve West’s image.