MS and HS Bathrooms - Normalizing Dangerous Areas at School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

According to my kids, the boys vape out in the open.

The girls lock themselves in stalls to vape, sometimes occupying all of the stalls for the entire passing time so no other girls are able to use the bathrooms.

[Anonymous]

My dd drives home everyday at lunch to poop

[Anonymous]

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.

We had teachers assigned to do this at the “problem” bathrooms in my HS in the 90s.

[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.

You're simply clueless if you think most bathrooms are limited to 3 stalls. Each bathroom would now need it's own sink, toilet, and be handicap accessible. A new build might accommodate this, but this would be impossible in any existing structure without significant renovation and loss of other facilities (like classrooms).

And yes, I agree that there are sick people out there that want boys in girls bathrooms, but insanity is the norm these days.

[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.

This. So much this. Ask any student or staff member and they'll tell you there are 10-20 kids who ruin it for everyone else. These are the same kids who get Uber Eats paid for by the principal or counselor for doing the absolute bare minimum while the ones who show up on time and actually do their work in class hardly get any acknowledgment.

[Anonymous]

The slew of "reforms" to education over the last 40 years have gradually eviscerated schools' ability to hold students accountable by shifting the onus for everything to schools and teachers.

Well, it takes two to dance. If you want change, it needs to start at the federal and state level to restore some semblance of sanity to this crazy system and start holding parents and students accountable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This. So much this. Ask any student or staff member and they'll tell you there are 10-20 kids who ruin it for everyone else. These are the same kids who get Uber Eats paid for by the principal or counselor for doing the absolute bare minimum while the ones who show up on time and actually do their work in class hardly get any acknowledgment.

Uber eats? What are you talking about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This. So much this. Ask any student or staff member and they'll tell you there are 10-20 kids who ruin it for everyone else. These are the same kids who get Uber Eats paid for by the principal or counselor for doing the absolute bare minimum while the ones who show up on time and actually do their work in class hardly get any acknowledgment.

Uber eats? What are you talking about?

Ordering food for students using Uber Eats or Door Dash.

[Anonymous]

SnapChat is perfect for organizing the toilet vaping play-dates popular with FCPS students in 2024.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This. So much this. Ask any student or staff member and they'll tell you there are 10-20 kids who ruin it for everyone else. These are the same kids who get Uber Eats paid for by the principal or counselor for doing the absolute bare minimum while the ones who show up on time and actually do their work in class hardly get any acknowledgment.

What are you going to do about those 10-20 kids? Suspend them?

Equity demands the schools NOT suspend any child over poor, or even criminal, behavior.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion.

[Anonymous]

If you think it’s bad now, just look where democrats led the Montgomery County schools by eliminating most student discipline in the name of “equity:”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/02/26/montgomery-county-schools-bathrooms-dangerous/

Even the WaPo is calling MoCo school bathrooms dangerous.

And in their infinite wisdom, MoCo removed all Special Resource Officers from schools, to “defund the police.”

If you want sanity, stop voting for democrats.

[Anonymous]

There are technological solutions for these problems. AI cameras that don't record and don't send anything out to the network/cloud can be trained to recognize things like vaping / drugs / spending too long in a stall / more than one person in a stall / fighting / etc. and alert someone to go check things out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you think it’s bad now, just look where democrats led the Montgomery County schools by eliminating most student discipline in the name of “equity:”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/02/26/montgomery-county-schools-bathrooms-dangerous/

Even the WaPo is calling MoCo school bathrooms dangerous.

And in their infinite wisdom, MoCo removed all Special Resource Officers from schools, to “defund the police.”

If you want sanity, stop voting for democrats.

Dangerous schools are not just an issue of politics. It’s also changing demographics. Both MoCo and NoVa are a lot more social-economically diverse than in previous generations. Go look at red states/counties with a greater percentage of low income students. Is it any better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This. So much this. Ask any student or staff member and they'll tell you there are 10-20 kids who ruin it for everyone else. These are the same kids who get Uber Eats paid for by the principal or counselor for doing the absolute bare minimum while the ones who show up on time and actually do their work in class hardly get any acknowledgment.

What are you going to do about those 10-20 kids? Suspend them?

Equity demands the schools NOT suspend any child over poor, or even criminal, behavior.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion.

That's not what equity demands. Equity demands that everyone is given what they need to be successful. Rewarding the kids who are behaving the worst is not helping them to become more successful. Anyone who believes otherwise has obviously not followed up with these kids after they get out of school.

[Anonymous]

It’s so sad to hear my kid can’t use the bathroom at school because he’s afraid to get into fights. Not sure if there’s any solution.