Here is an article from Silver Chips, Montgomery Blair's student newspaper, concerning how recent budget shortfalls impact their school operations. Note that the school runs two lunch periods - 5A and 5B. Students are in class if they are not in scheduled lunch.
What would the health department say about this one? Or your pediatrician?
Silver Chips Online
Security and building service staff implement new bathroom policy
Second and third floor bathrooms are now locked during both lunches
By Mandy Xu, Staff Writer
December 1, 2009
The bathrooms on the second and third floors are now locked during 5A and 5B lunches due to a new bathroom policy that began at the start of the second quarter, according to security guard Adrian Kelly. Building service and security workers implemented the new policy due to security shortages.
Second and third floor bathrooms are closed during lunch.
Photo by Wylie Conlon
SGA President senior Alex Bae held a meeting with Principal Darryl Williams on Monday concerning the changes to the policy. Williams voiced his support of having the bathrooms open and fully functional in the near future and is taking steps towards this goal. "We've spoken to the admin about it and they're in complete agreement with us on the issue, so I trust the policy will make its way through in good time," Bae said.
Kelly maintained that the new policy is necessary, as the second and third floors are short on security during lunch time. "The majority of students hang in Blair Boulevard, and we are focused on keeping kids on school grounds," he said. "We have a shortage of security."
Blair staff speculated that vandalism and student abuse of bathroom privileges have also prompted security to introduce the new policy. "Most bathrooms are vandalized during lunch," Building Services Manager Yakubu Agbonselobho said. Economics teacher Brian Hinkle believes that the vandalism led to the new policy. "Supposedly, certain things have taken place like vandalism," he said. "So, they lock them up during lunch."
Custodian Marianne Christopher also noted that some students skip class in the bathroom. "A lot of kids hide out in there," she said. Security team leader Cedric Boatman declined to comment on other reasons for the new policy.
Contrary to informal policy requirements, second and third floor bathrooms are sometimes locked throughout regular class periods. "A lot of my kids complain, because they have to go to the bathroom," Hinkle said. Christopher, the custodian who locks the bathrooms, emphasized that the policy only requires building service workers to lock the bathrooms during lunch hours "I open them 20 minutes after 12 [p.m.]," she said.
http://silverchips.mbhs.edu/story/9705
UPDATE: The Washington Post, The Answer Sheet - School closes bathrooms because of security shortage
UPDATE: WTOP's Kate Ryan reports, School locks some bathrooms during lunch
UPDATE: ABC 7 News, Principal Under Fire for Locking School Bathrooms
UPDATE: The Washington Post, The Answer Sheet - School closes bathrooms because of security shortage
UPDATE: WTOP's Kate Ryan reports, School locks some bathrooms during lunch
UPDATE: ABC 7 News, Principal Under Fire for Locking School Bathrooms
First move is to punish the children? This is the Baldridge model for how to run a school?
ReplyDeleteWhat about the millions that have been spent on IQEye security cameras that can see to the whites of the eyes?
ReplyDeletehttp://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/search?q=IQEye
Remember they were to CUT DOWN on the number of security guards because they were so awesome. And there was no need for the Board of Education to even discuss the purchase! MCPS staff just went out on a spending spree!
http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2009/03/mcps-more-cameras-less-security-staff.html
Less security was the PLAN!
Gee... I don't think that Cevin Soling even thought of that when he made his documentary The War on Kids.
ReplyDeletehtt://www.thewaronkids.com
Since the county can't seem to provide the facilities, maybe we can stage something similar to what the Eastern Shore did with Willy Don years back when they brought outhouses to the State House and Governor's Mansion. We could bring some Port-A-Pottys to Blair. Seems the economy is so tight we as private citizens have to provide the bathroom facilities now for our children.
ReplyDeleteJanis, doesn't Baldrige include all of the stakeholders weighing in on the process? Wouldn't that mean the students and the parents? Hmmm, the Baldrige model looks good on the resume but is not necessarily something we really want to implement on a day-to-day basis. It is too messy to have to listen to all of the stakeholders, especially those vocal ones such as the parents coalition.
One has to wonder about the vandalism issue. Is it possible that we need fewer security guards, and more alternatives for students who don't want to be in the kind of schools that push "college for all?"
ReplyDeleteWhile I do not condone destruction of property, I feel for students who've been moved along the conveyor belt for years and now have to endure hours a day of HSA, SAT, AP,etc. prep courses and pep talks. What if they were in schools that take their needs and interests into consideration?
Look at the data on Thomas Edison HS of Technology regarding safety:
Reported Serious Incidents in 2008-9: 1
Percentage of staff who say that the school is a safe place to work: 100%
Percentage of students who feel safe at school: 94.4%
Of course, one needs to consider that the number of students enrolled is very small (584 in 2008-08). But what if we had more programs like that?
I am a junior at Montgomery Blair High School and I find it absolutely ridiculous that a school views our right to go to the bathroom to relieve ourselves and to keep ourselves clean in flu season a privilege. I view it as a basic responsibility. The school must provide us with the ability to stay clean or we will spread sickness.
ReplyDeleteI know that the administration will counter my argument by saying that there are still bathrooms available on the first floor, however during my sixth period I am ten feet away from a bathroom and when I need to go I cannot because it is locked, I have to walk to the first floor, which requires me to miss 10 or more minutes of a AP level class.
This is only one of a number of idiotic new policies the administration is imposing on us. Just yesterday I saw a new policy being implemented, a building service worker was unfolding a tall yellow metal fence in front of the main staircase. This is a serious fire hazard. Personally if the administration can't implement good lunch policy I have lost all trust that they are implementing good policy on major issues such as drug enforcement, campus security from unauthorized visitors, and keeping so called "at risk" students in school.
It is about time that the administration [and teachers for that matter] stop treating kids like enemy and start treating us more like coworkers!