MS and HS Bathrooms - Normalizing Dangerous Areas at School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it highly disturbing that we normalize that it’s ok for bathrooms at many FCPS MS and HS to be unsafe. Like most parents, we advise children to avoid them due to drugs/vaping/violence/rape/etc.

We are in big trouble as a community by telling our children to avoid a primal necessity, like going to bathroom, because it is dangerous.

Why has no PTA or parent group pushed this on FCPS? Kids should not avoid drinking water and going to the bathroom because of safety concerns. What solutions are there for FCPS to monitor and supervise our children better at school so they are safe?

Has anyone else reflected on the normalization and desensitization of this safety issue that’s unresolved and unfair to our children? Have any schools addressed this?

Behaviors in schools has been getting worse and that goes for ES too. I don't know what the answer is but agree teachers and students should be able to go to school without constant disruptive and unsafe behaviors going on all day. No one can do their jobs like this and it impacts learning. If you aren't going to the restroom all day how focused are you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it highly disturbing that we normalize that it’s ok for bathrooms at many FCPS MS and HS to be unsafe. Like most parents, we advise children to avoid them due to drugs/vaping/violence/rape/etc.

We are in big trouble as a community by telling our children to avoid a primal necessity, like going to bathroom, because it is dangerous.

Why has no PTA or parent group pushed this on FCPS? Kids should not avoid drinking water and going to the bathroom because of safety concerns. What solutions are there for FCPS to monitor and supervise our children better at school so they are safe?

Has anyone else reflected on the normalization and desensitization of this safety issue that’s unresolved and unfair to our children? Have any schools addressed this?

Seeing as how Americans don't seem to care about the fact that kids can be gunned down in their classrooms, they will NEVER care about this. Find another hill to die on.

Teachers are leaving because nothing ever gets done about any "hill".

[Anonymous]

This is actually an easy fix. You make bathrooms single rooms -- unisex. But only one person can use them at a time. Instead of a large room, you make a series of smaller water closets.

Yeah, I get someone could still go in and vape or whatever, but kids wouldn't be able to congregate and terrorize others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is actually an easy fix. You make bathrooms single rooms -- unisex. But only one person can use them at a time. Instead of a large room, you make a series of smaller water closets.

Yeah, I get someone could still go in and vape or whatever, but kids wouldn't be able to congregate and terrorize others.

Your "easy fix" is impossible to implement. The schools would be full of bathrooms, not classrooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is actually an easy fix. You make bathrooms single rooms -- unisex. But only one person can use them at a time. Instead of a large room, you make a series of smaller water closets.

Yeah, I get someone could still go in and vape or whatever, but kids wouldn't be able to congregate and terrorize others.

Your "easy fix" is impossible to implement. The schools would be full of bathrooms, not classrooms.

That's ridiculous. How many stalls does a typical big-space "boys" or "girls" bathroom have? Three? So you just have a couple of single-use bathrooms in various halls. Make them unisex -- takes care of the ridiculous fight over what restrooms trans kids should use (although I think there are some people out there who desperately want to keep that fight going for whatever sick reason).

Is there some reason WHY using a toilet needs to be a communal experience in a school? No. So just change the build.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is actually an easy fix. You make bathrooms single rooms -- unisex. But only one person can use them at a time. Instead of a large room, you make a series of smaller water closets.

Yeah, I get someone could still go in and vape or whatever, but kids wouldn't be able to congregate and terrorize others.

Your "easy fix" is impossible to implement. The schools would be full of bathrooms, not classrooms.

That's ridiculous. How many stalls does a typical big-space "boys" or "girls" bathroom have? Three? So you just have a couple of single-use bathrooms in various halls. Make them unisex -- takes care of the ridiculous fight over what restrooms trans kids should use (although I think there are some people out there who desperately want to keep that fight going for whatever sick reason).

Is there some reason WHY using a toilet needs to be a communal experience in a school? No. So just change the build.

This is exactly what is happening in many new buildings across the country. But it still doesn't solve the problem of our currently existing buildings. Sadly, most cannot be retrofitted in this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is actually an easy fix. You make bathrooms single rooms -- unisex. But only one person can use them at a time. Instead of a large room, you make a series of smaller water closets.

Yeah, I get someone could still go in and vape or whatever, but kids wouldn't be able to congregate and terrorize others.

Your "easy fix" is impossible to implement. The schools would be full of bathrooms, not classrooms.

That's ridiculous. How many stalls does a typical big-space "boys" or "girls" bathroom have? Three? So you just have a couple of single-use bathrooms in various halls. Make them unisex -- takes care of the ridiculous fight over what restrooms trans kids should use (although I think there are some people out there who desperately want to keep that fight going for whatever sick reason).

Is there some reason WHY using a toilet needs to be a communal experience in a school? No. So just change the build.

This is exactly what is happening in many new buildings across the country. But it still doesn't solve the problem of our currently existing buildings. Sadly, most cannot be retrofitted in this way.

Those schools which cannot be retrofitted should close faculty and administration bathrooms. If the students had a reasonable concern that a teacher/administrator/adult was in the stall next to them they’d be more on their guard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re right, it sucks that kids feel unsafe using the bathrooms. Everyone should feel comfortable with that basic need. I teach high school and it breaks my heart when kids are scared to go.

But what do you suggest? Schools are trying all sorts of things, and none of it is making a dent (closing popular drug bathrooms so there are less to monitor, putting cameras in the hallway to review who goes in there for more than 5 minutes, ehallpass to monitor who is out of class when, limiting hall passes for prior offenders)

I think the only things that would work would be literally stationing an adult inside the bathroom as a monitor. A) that’s cost prohibitive, b) no one is going to sign up to sit in a hs bathroom for 8 hours a day, and c) I think you’d get a lot of pushback about adults in restrooms with kids.

Alternatively, we could put airport security scanners in every school and scan every bag, instrument case, sports equipment, jacket, shoes. It would take 2 hours for kids to get in and they’d miss 75% of contraband) because vape devices literally look like flash drives or pens), but it might discourage some.

Do you have other ideas? I’m serious, I’m happy to bring them to admin. We brainstorm around this a lot and haven’t had any grand ideas.

What about having two additional security guards, whose only job is to randomly check bathrooms. A male and a female. They randomly check the bathrooms throughout the day. If caught, make the punishment severe. Have them wear some kind of audio recording as a check on guards themselves.

So…2 people at $40,000 a year at 100 MS and HS schools. That would cost 8 Million dollars a year.

Isn't that around what the gatehouse and superintendent raises came to?

Or we could eliminate 1:1 laptops in K-4 and go back to grade level carts and textbooks.

[Anonymous]

My high school kids complain about this all the time as their school's solution is to lock all the bathrooms.

Their thought is that everyone, including staff, knows exactly who the 20 are so main instigators and problem students are. The kids causing trouble in the bathrooms and skipping classes are a small group of kids ruining things for everyone. They want the schools to come down hard on those kids instead of giving them repeat chances to continue to cause problems for everyone else.

I think that their parents raise holy hell when their kids get in trouble. Or maybe the kids have IEPs or special circumstances where they are allowed extra leniency for behaviors. Who knows. But my kids think punishing that small group of kids, mostly a rolling group of underclassmen, will improve things school wide.

Gatehouse AND parents need to support school administrators and teachers in putting discipline back intk scholls, starting in elementary school. Punishing the majority to accomodate or make things easier for a small minority simply does not work.

[Anonymous]

I haven’t read this whole thread but I was just talking to my high schooler about this issue the other day. They said they hold it in all day to avoid people vaping in the bathrooms. I went to Lake Braddock in the 90s and we had staff called rat patrols who just roamed the school with walkie talkies all day looking for this kind of stuff.

[Anonymous]

As a parent of a rising 7th grader that will be at Longfellow next year what is the bathroom situation like there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My high school kids complain about this all the time as their school's solution is to lock all the bathrooms.

Their thought is that everyone, including staff, knows exactly who the 20 are so main instigators and problem students are. The kids causing trouble in the bathrooms and skipping classes are a small group of kids ruining things for everyone. They want the schools to come down hard on those kids instead of giving them repeat chances to continue to cause problems for everyone else.

I think that their parents raise holy hell when their kids get in trouble. Or maybe the kids have IEPs or special circumstances where they are allowed extra leniency for behaviors. Who knows. But my kids think punishing that small group of kids, mostly a rolling group of underclassmen, will improve things school wide.

Gatehouse AND parents need to support school administrators and teachers in putting discipline back intk scholls, starting in elementary school. Punishing the majority to accomodate or make things easier for a small minority simply does not work.

They need to repeal the laws that prevent public schools from permanently expelling students that cannot behave. Frankly it doesn’t matter why these kids cannot behave. If they are consistently disrupting class and harming other students education they need to be banned from school permanently. No exceptions or excuses.

[Anonymous]

This was even a problem back in the 80’s. I recall that teachers were assigned bathroom duty and hated it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My high school kids complain about this all the time as their school's solution is to lock all the bathrooms.

Their thought is that everyone, including staff, knows exactly who the 20 are so main instigators and problem students are. The kids causing trouble in the bathrooms and skipping classes are a small group of kids ruining things for everyone. They want the schools to come down hard on those kids instead of giving them repeat chances to continue to cause problems for everyone else.

I think that their parents raise holy hell when their kids get in trouble. Or maybe the kids have IEPs or special circumstances where they are allowed extra leniency for behaviors. Who knows. But my kids think punishing that small group of kids, mostly a rolling group of underclassmen, will improve things school wide.

Gatehouse AND parents need to support school administrators and teachers in putting discipline back intk scholls, starting in elementary school. Punishing the majority to accomodate or make things easier for a small minority simply does not work.

+1 million (extra emphasis mine).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven’t read this whole thread but I was just talking to my high schooler about this issue the other day. They said they hold it in all day to avoid people vaping in the bathrooms. I went to Lake Braddock in the 90s and we had staff called rat patrols who just roamed the school with walkie talkies all day looking for this kind of stuff.

I don’t like the vaping in the bathrooms and I think the kids should face serious consequences for it. That being said - is another kid vaping in the bathroom really causing a dangerous situation for your kid? Are they beating up kids who “catch” them vaping or just giving dirty looks and going about their business? I thought kids were avoiding the bathrooms because they were being filmed in there and posted to Snapchat, or because it was a place to target kids for bullying and harassment. Kids at my HS a million years ago would drink vodka or other clear alcohol out of water bottles in the bathroom and people just gave them a wide berth and didn’t get involved BUT that didn’t inherently mean the bathroom was dangerous.