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9486 in the collection
The Last Day Before the First Day Is Too Late
Visit ProjectClean (Citizens, Learners, and Educators Against Neglect) for more information. Don't miss the narrative about "True Dat," a ski about America's public school restrooms.
by Tom Keating
Students regularly come to school on Mondays following a weekend, or Tuesdays after a national holiday, or any day of the week when a winter, spring, or summer vacation ends. We concentrate on the first day of school with fervor, programs, and excitement.
We need to concentrate on the last day before students return. In contrast to John Denver’s refrain that “today is the first day of the rest of my life,” it is the last day, before the first day, which is critical to student restrooms.
Consider a personal experience I observed near Atlanta. However I have seen similar conditions from California to Delaware, in Huntsville and Pittsburgh.
In a summer school program with about 445 diverse, 9th-12th graders, all congregating in a two-floor building, using four sets of restrooms during a three-week session, I saw the following at noon on the Friday before a Monday opening.
Sinks on the floor, lavatories askew from the wall or hanging wobbly from weak supports. Both erotic and gang graffiti splattered the walls. Each set of restrooms for Men had doors, toilet paper and dispensers missing, and the rooms for Women had sanitary product receptacles without bags and trash cans still half full.
Maybe the staff planned to fix these eight restrooms on Saturday, which would have required approval of overtime. Maybe.
The only description of restrooms that Friday was “despicable.” By Monday most of the gray walls were repainted, and the sinks either remounted or fresh silicon chalk applied. Receptacles were still bag less, yet trash cans were empty.
The point is a simple one. Long before the Friday before the students came to summer school – the last day before the first day, if you will – the restrooms should have been checked, cleaned, painted, and repaired.
Too often custodians, especially during summer, which historically was the time frame for emptying classrooms, stripping floors, and replacing furniture – all too frequently custodians wait to do restrooms using the excuse that students aren’t around.
Building administrators are often besieged with scheduling, malfunctiong heating and air conditioning, student arrests, media and media pressure on higher test scores. Nevertheless some things are quite straight forward. Restrooms can’t be effectively prepared at the last minute.
The admonition is equally simple. Clean restrooms immediately after students leave, and make them secure, until early the day students return. Do not leave major work on restrooms till almost an afterthought the last day before the first day kids walk in the doors.
On at least the last day before the first day, restrooms should be reviewed and a detailed checklist, a punch list if you will, should be completed by the supervisor of the custodial crew and hopefully the administrator responsible for the facility. The repairs and cleaning should have been done much earlier.
In a middle school with eight sets of restrooms, the person responsible for nutrition and custodial functions accompanied me on the last day before an extended winter holiday. She kept copious notes, and observed broken mirrors, bent towel and missing toilet dispensers, as well as disgraceful rhymes or phrases. Maybe her confronting the custodial staff was not acceptable, yet neither was the graffiti which had been up since the “last day students were here,” in December.
After our first review, this same administrator checked the restrooms each time we had a vacation and many times just after weekends. Any district or building staff can initiate a practical schedule for reviewing restrooms whether they supervise elementary, middle, or secondary schools.
This practice of cleaning and repairing restrooms as soon as students leave includes the obvious, yet frequently ignored, act of flushing all toilets. Following weekends, extended four-day holidays, winter/spring, or summer vacations, it is a truism that the restrooms should be checked before students arrive.
All stalls should be stocked, all fixtures properly functioning, all leaks and repairs completed, and all graffiti removed or scratchitti covered.
Restrooms are not an after thought. Since all students have to breathe, eat, sleep, and eliminate, school restrooms relate to a critical, daily, bodily function.
John Denver’s song may have the singer wanting to put on faces because he realizes he still has time to live. We should help all students have a healthy face and constitution and this is done long before that last day before the first day.
— Tom Keating
School Planning and Management
2008-07-01
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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