Restrooms locked down due to vandalism
By Nuran Alteir, staff writer
Monday, April 21, 2008
 Abuse of the restrooms, such as this example of graffiti, led to a temporary lock-down of the restrooms. (photo credit: Nuran Alteir)
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On Friday, April 11, the restrooms near the “Chateau Baron” were locked up to be repaired because of recent vandalism. The restrooms had been victims of graffiti and other types of vandalism for weeks prior.
Supervision resorted to locking the restrooms during the day to stop the vandalism from reoccurring.
Janitors reported human feces on the wall, floor, and ceilings. In the boys’ restroom, the paper towel dispenser was filled with human feces. Graffiti covered one of the stalls. Some days, the paper towel dispenser in the girls’ restroom was torn out.
“Someone must have had a really bad day and got mad at someone and literally took a metal toilet paper dispenser and ripped it apart and off the wall,” said janitor Bruce Estrada. “Some will sit there and unroll paper rolls and destroy ceiling tiles, and others will put tennis balls and shove them down toilets causing floods. It’s just vandalism.”
The supervision staff has been checking the restrooms regularly to see when the vandalism is occurring. According to Officer Lund, it seems to be happening mostly before school starts and after school ends when staff is not present.
The thing that supervision and the janitors need is for the students themselves come forward. To be in restrooms all the time is not possible; there is just not enough staff for that to be feasible.
“We rely on the student’s help,” said Lund.
“Students cause it, and students can stop it,” said Estrada, “they have to be aware of their surroundings. It’s like the trash on the campus; we have plenty of trash cans, and if the students didn’t throw it on the ground, the campus would look a lot nicer.”
“I think the students should be outraged. It’s not the adult’s bathrooms; it’s theirs,” said Mrs. Kira Hurst, assistant principal of FVHS, who agrees that there is not much the staff can do besides go through the bathrooms more often. Cameras in the bathrooms are out of the question due to legal issues. “It’s so beyond normal behavior, I don’t understand it,” said Hurst.
