After class, kids would often shower their bodies with something other than water, she said.

“Sometimes I’d be in a haze because there’d be so much perfume out in the locker room for the girls,” Adkins said, “and I’m sure for the boys it was all the cologne that was being put on.”

Self-esteem issues keep some kids away from showers, she said. Most of the middle school kids she taught would change clothes in a bathroom stall or come to class already wearing different clothes for P.E., because they didn’t feel comfortable in the locker room.

“When I was working with the volleyball team, if they had (to use) the gang-type showers, a lot of them would wear their swimming suits,” she said.

Kids offer a variety of reasons for not showering.

“Showering isn’t really a thing anymore,” said Ralston High School senior Jordan Nielsen. “It’s just, kind of, you slip out of your gym clothes, because no one ever really gets sweaty.”

Nielsen, a fullback and middle linebacker on the Ralston football team, said he might shower after an early morning practice before school, “but other than that, I never really take showers here.”