Tenafly High School is one of the leading high schools in New Jersey, even exceptionally ranking nationally as well. THS excels on multiple fronts with accomplished students uplifting the school’s honor. However, as students of THS, we have seen and heard some troubling things which are certainly not written about in the US News rankings. Being seniors, we have accompanied THS through its many phases and changes. Some have been beneficial and, well, some have been questionable. From ceiling leaks to piercing parlors in the girls’ bathroom, we can confidently say that Tenafly needs some major upgrades.

It has been chaotic with all four grades flooding THS’s halls after the pandemic. It is eerie to think about the fact that the current seniors were the only ones able to experience high school prior to the pandemic. Now that everything is returning to normal (well, as normal as ‘normal’ in the pandemic can be), the whole dynamic of being a student in high school has changed. For one, the bathrooms have been revamped into 7-Elevens—complete with snacks and the artificial whiff of stale vape smoke. Some bathrooms have even doubled as piercing parlors, in case you felt like your cartilage was looking a bit dull. It isn’t a bathroom if a bunch of sophomore girls aren’t suspiciously crowding into one stall and dispersing as soon as the bathroom door swings. Can someone tell me why the bathrooms are being used for anything other than going number one and number two?

Speaking of bathrooms, the ones in THS look as though they may crumble. The boys’ bathroom especially has some major defects, as urinals don’t have dividing walls among them. Eitan Frankowitz (’22) recalls a harrowing situation his sister stumbled upon: “Because there are no walls between the urinals and the door opened to the bathroom, she saw a guy peeing in the urinal.” Some students avoid the wasteland that THS calls a boys’ bathroom because “there are no walls in between the urinals,” Ben Goldstein (’22) said. “It’s always gross. It smells terrible. That’s why I don’t go in there anymore.” In the girls’ bathroom, there is never any soap or paper towels, which is a little ironic considering there is a pandemic right now. On a related note, not too long ago, there was a bucket in the middle of the second-floor hallway outside the ELL office, collecting water from a ceiling leak.

We’re sure that we’re not the only ones wondering why THS has not remedied these structural deficiencies. With all the taxes Tenafly families pay, these issues should be addressed quickly. Where is the Tenafly tax money given to the school going, if not to address these urgent repairs?

The addition of substitutes might answer that question. The IDT fiasco has left students angered, as IDTs come few and far in between nowadays. Now, those IDTs are replaced with substitutes who assign students pointless ‘busy work.’ Our senior president, Lucy Harper (’22) feels similarly. “There’s so much of a need for substitute teachers despite students sitting in there,” she said. “Substitute teachers create a waste of time and money for students and administrators, a bad use of tax dollars by parents, and it leaves students feeling unproductive during class time when, otherwise, they could be using that time to recharge emotionally or gaining some energy to get back to work.” In the Age of Google Classroom, substitutes are unnecessary. Yet for some reason, the single-stall bathroom near the principal’s office is ‘guarded’ by substitutes, who spend each shift scrolling through their phones. However, the substitutes are only there during certain periods of the day, which makes us think that they are only posted there when they aren’t needed. Even then, they are getting paid to be on their phones while manning a bathroom. Yes, you heard me right, getting paid to monitor a bathroom (not even all day!). Essentially, THS is paying for an excess number of substitute teachers when, in reality, they aren’t necessarily needed throughout the school. If anything, students would appreciate the extra IDTs and the school could save some extra money to put towards repairs. And don’t think students don’t notice the conveniently late time that IDT lists are sent, making sure students who arrive at school stay in school. Instead of learning of IDTs ahead of time, students are informed of IDTs as soon as they enter the school. Already at school, students are awake and there is a brief window of time for them to go home. Why is THS so repulsed by the idea of students staying home or going home and relaxing amidst the seven hours of stress that is the school day?

Finally,, New Jersey winters are brutal and unwavering—slipping on icy roads, dreading the pile of snow obscuring the driveways, shivering uncontrollably even with a parka. One would expect a heating system to account for the cold weather outside, but unfortunately, the heating system at the high school has remained disappointingly dysfunctional. For all four years we’ve been at THS, the heating system has failed to properly operate, leaving us cold and shivering (almost wishing to go back outside instead). From the months of December through March, we stack up layers under our layers. Our fingers turn blue, then white, then blue again, as some classrooms were desert-hot while others were akin to a frozen tundra. And as seniors, we find it alarming that this has been a problem for four years. We’re hoping that the next generation of THS students will be able to work in class without getting hypothermia. Until then, happy forever winter (great Taylor Swift song, by the way).

High school is a place where kids should feel safe and comfortable. It was no easy feat to list these complaints. We hope the administration takes our grievances seriously and makes substantial strides towards a better (and less stinky) school.

No more buckets in the hallways? Toilets that flush? Oh my!