In the past year, the peer counselors at Conifer High School decorated the bathrooms with vines, posters, lights, full-length mirrors, and butterflies. The peer counselors help the underclassmen (freshman and sophomores) adjust to the new school, decorate the school with posters and decorations to make it feel like home, as well as offer counseling for those in need, recently they started decorating the school bathrooms. Not only did they add decorations to the girls’ bathroom but they have also tried adding decorations to the boys’ bathrooms as well.
Starting last school year the peer counselors decided to decorate the school bathrooms to make them more inclusive and welcoming. Senior peer counselors Sheridan Raley, Alizea Sager, Isabella Hess, Shayne Manzer, Maddie Forester, and Emily Knapp all participated in decorating the bathrooms. Last year towards the end of the school year the bathrooms had a few posters and some decorations. This year, they’ve stepped it up even more by adding several other decorations.
“The bathrooms were a big project last year that they took on because we went to Cherry Creek diversity day. The counselor saw the bathrooms there and was inspired. So they came back and just really amplified it even more,” counselor Kim Spease said.
When you enter the bathrooms there are inspirational quotes, popular TikTok sounds, such as “you’re doing amazing sweetie”, and posters. While you continue through the bathroom you will run into a full-length mirror with stickers saying “you look great” as well as other compliments. On the mirror, there are 3D butterflies as well as purple butterflies stuck on the wall. Continuing through the bathroom the sinks have a “take what you need bin” along with more butterflies on the counter. On the sink mirrors there are more compliment stickers as well as vines outlining the mirrors and string lights as well. Hanging from the ceiling are lanterns and other decorations.
“The bathrooms just don’t seem as blank, it doesn’t seem like a basic school bathroom, it feels more like a place where people go to make friends, bond, and socialize,” freshman Penelope Dickinson said.
(Emily Bunchman)
In the past, vandalization has been a minor problem with a few butterflies going missing and broken posters. Recently, when decorating the boys’ bathroom, the majority of the decorations were lost due to vandalization and it is unknown if they will be replaced.
“We did decorate the boys’ bathroom. We put some posters in there and I think they’re going to order some borders for the mirrors, and they did put a few stickers for the walls and mirrors,” Spease said.
Forester as well as Alizea Sager and other peer counselors were the ones to set up the decorations in the boys’ bathroom.
“Alizea and I did put up inspirational quotes as well as some sports photos in the boys’ bathroom. It’s probably taken down by now, but junior Austin Clate helped to guard the bathroom so in a way we all pitched in,” Forester said.
The newest additions to the bathrooms were the full-length mirrors that the district purchased for the school. They decided to add full-length mirrors after receiving multiple requests. On top of that, multiple peer counselors wanted the students at Conifer to be able to see their whole outfit and not just use the half mirrors that they originally had.
“I mean, everyone should feel welcomed and happy and be positive. So I think coming into the high school from the middle school and seeing the decorations and period products available made me feel welcomed and wanted,” Dickinson said.
