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? |
Teachers are leaving because nothing ever gets done about any "hill". |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
As a parent of a rising 7th grader that will be at Longfellow next year what is the bathroom situation like there? |
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. |
This was even a problem back in the 80’s. I recall that teachers were assigned bathroom duty and hated it. |
+1 million (extra emphasis mine). |
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. |