It is commonly known that a single trip to the restroom can make or break a students’ day. Let’s be real, high school is not glamorous. Take a typical trip to the restroom for instance. Just to get the chance to use the restroom requires a hall pass, which of course will be suspiciously wet. Trying not to think about it, you’ll walk up and down the halls to find a restroom, just to find the floor wet, no paper towels and a foul smell. 

In man’s humble quest for an optimal restroom, we devised a list of the best and worst restrooms at Madison. Each restroom was rated by its functionality, cleanliness, privacy, amenities and a couple bonus points for anything outstanding (if you could call a public school restroom outstanding). The restrooms could also win or lose points based on students’ opinions. 

Like the Charmin Ultra Soft of Madison restrooms, the library restrooms were at the top of our list. Nearly all of the library restrooms’ appliances were automated, including the toilets and sinks. It won bonus points for the full length mirror, and most surprisingly, was one of the few restrooms without any graffiti. These restrooms only lost points due to their inconvenient location. Tucked away in the corner of the library, they aren’t easy to find or use. Unless you want to be chased by security on your way up, we wouldn’t recommend using these restrooms unless you are already in the library.

“My favorite bathroom is the library bathroom because it’s really spacious [and] really open.” Annabel Kelly (’26) said. “The whole bathroom was really nice, it looks new, looks clean [and] the sinks always work.”

Second on the list was the Cohort hallway restrooms. Like the library restrooms, these restrooms were also mostly automated, had a mirror, and were clean. The Cohort hallway restrooms were only surpassed by the library restrooms because these restrooms can be crowded and overall feel less spacious. 

“I really like the Cohort hallway bathrooms because I really like the full length mirror,” Mary Kennedy (’26) said. ‘It’s really nice except for when people hog the mirror.”

The restrooms that scored second to last were the art hallway restrooms. Unlike the Cohort hallway and library restrooms, the art hallway restrooms were not very clean, sinks in both the girls and boys restrooms weren’t working and the art hallway is in an inconvenient location for students unless in an art class. There were also no windows in both the boys and girls restrooms and only faint, dim lights which made the restrooms feel a little dark and dingy. While these factors are all bad, the worst one, according to one student, is that the locks on the restroom stalls are faulty.

“The locks don’t work all the time,” Kelly said. “There was one instance where I was in the art hallway bathroom, and I hung my backpack on the hanger in the stall. When I put my backpack on the hanger, the lock opened and it wouldn’t close, so I had to simultaneously keep the door closed while using the bathroom.” 

The only redeeming quality of these restrooms would be the art and writings on the stall doors, which are creative and cool to look at, but then again, not all of them are nice. 

Even though the art hallway restrooms have their bad qualities, no restrooms in Madison are worse than that in the language hallway. The girls restroom in the language hallway was gross, as there was toilet paper and paper towels all over the floor. The sinks were also poor quality, with low water pressure and inability to use the cold tap on one of the sinks. Furthermore, people tend to crowd here, which can be awkward when you actually have to use the restroom. To top it off, there is even a not a boys restroom in the language hallway. The closest one is near the blended hallway. These negative qualities are what makes this restroom the worst restroom in Madison.

“[The language hallway restroom] is nasty,” Erin Lo (’26) said. “It smells really bad in there and the bottom of the stall is really high so there isn’t a good barrier.”

Here is the exhaustive list of all the Madison restrooms ranked from best to worst:

1. Library 
2. Cohort (new hallway) 
3. History 
4. Lunch 
5. Math hallway* 
6. English 
7. Blended
8. Science 
9. Art 
10. Main hallway 
11. Language hallway* 

*Girls restroom only for this rating