Sounds good. I personally favor unisex bathrooms. So if one bathroom is tied up, anyone can use it. Male or female. I think these also work better for familes with young children as well especially of the opposite sex.

Good article. "Lord of the Flies," That's so true.

Interesting that this comes from the UK. I went to college with a guy from London and we actually discussed our junior-high-high-school bathroom exploits. And though I had been in some fights, done some smoking, and detonated a few explosive devices in the school shitters, it was nothing like what he described. Sounded like the school toilets in the UK were real dangerous places.

Some of the design suggestions are very constructive. But I can't help wondering if it's not the bathroom so much as the discipline implemented in the school that encourages bullies.

I know I grew up in a simpler time, but we had to have passes to leave the classroom in between bells. The boys' rooms even had open stalls and urinal troughs, but there was never any bullying.

I think a combination of better design and discipline would be helpful. I'm sure it's not easy being a teacher these days.

Pulling My Pants Down For Peace, Plop and Posterity!

I have one more suggestion. Do away with teacher's restrooms. Make them use the same ones the kids use. This would make cleanliness a bigger issue and the possibility of a teacher in the bathroom would discourage trouble making.

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.....hugging bunnies since 1969
www.daphneszoo.com

I bet you'd have a big problem with teachers agreeing to sharing bathrooms with students. I remember there was a teachers' lounge at my school where they could all go during their breaks and have coffee and talk. Their bathrooms were off that area.

I really wonder if you could get teachers to agree to give up the privileges of rank, so to speak. (I think the suggestion is a good one, though.)

Pulling My Pants Down For Peace, Plop and Posterity!

I'm a in my first-year as a high school teacher. Although our school has more than 2,500 students and there are faculty bathrooms in each wing as well as in the main office, I use the student toilets which are much nearer my classroom. Most of the 22 other teachers in my department use the faculty toilets. If I hustle right in after my class dismisses, I can almost always get a stall without waiting, although I sometimes have to wipe off urine before sitting down or do the flush that the last two or three users "forgot" to do. Occasionally, I smell smoke but I'm not on specific "duty" to peak into each stall. First, we only have a five-minute break between classes. Second, the culprit would likely be on the stool and have the cigarette at bowl-level between her legs and it's very hard to detect. I have, however, called the physical plant office to report overflowing toilets, and in one case, a hand dryer partially dislodged from the wall. My biggest surprise, however, is the number of students that don't flush. Although I'm teaching in Iowa after having grown up in Florida, I'm most appalled by the lack of flushing. Before I started school Mom taught me to wipe the seat, go, wipe myself, and flush. It shouldn't be that hard and I don't believe a custodian should be assigned to walk through and flush each of 15-some toilets every hour.

My idea would be to do away with communal bathrooms altogether.

Each classroom could have a one-toilet, one-sink bathroom in it. The exhaust fan could be loud enough to cover any noise, and the door could be sturdy enough to keep the fan noise from disrupting class.

Those students who were too shameful to go during class could use their passing time (hah!) between classes to use the bathroom.

What Miss Jones said is right on target. I've been teaching longer (11 years) and at the middle school level. The amount of flushing is minimal. Like her, I use the student bathrooms out of convenience and I'm appalled by the number of girls who will wipe, pull up their panties and jeans, and go running out of the stalls without flushing OR stopping to wash their hands. My husband, who teaches high school history, said the boys are about as bad. One of his "supervision" responsibilities is to check out one of the boys' bathrooms each morning about 10:30 a.m. The most gross thing he sees is that some toilet bowls are filled with crap so high that it's above the water level; because they often don't flush, several boys contribute to such a mess. Like me, he also sees a breakdown in hand-washing. He's been teaching 15 years.

I wonder if we need to add a restroom upkeep lesson and personal hygiene training for our incoming students early in the year. I would find it hard to believe that wiping yourself after a messy poop and throwing the toilet paper wad onto the seat or floor (I've seen both in the past month!)is taught in the home.

GGG, that's an excellent idea. In Ft. Knox, all the little kids' rooms had single bathrooms and a sink. When Thing One was in second grade, I visited him and got to use that toilet. It was so tiny and low to the ground that I almost fell on my butt. And the sink was practically knee level. How cute. I felt like I'd broken into Bilbo Baggins' bathroom.

The one thing that might cause trouble with this design would be noise control. If the class could hear what was going on in the toilet, I can only imagine the horror the peer or pooper would feel, especially if in a highschool, after dispensing a huge, ear-splitting fart.

I do like this idea alot, though.

_______
.....hugging bunnies since 1969
www.daphneszoo.com

I go to a high school that's 40 years old but in need a a lot of repairs. Apparently, the tax money doesn't keep up with the vandalism. For example, in the wing where I have three of my classes, the girls bathroom has eight stalls but two have been "out of order" for more than a month now. Another stall, the first (my mom taught me to use it when possible because it supposedly has lesss use) has its door taken off and its been that way for three months because of a large amount of gang-type graffiti that was continually put up. I won't use the open stall but some girls do, but they're not too happy about it. I mentioned it to my English teacher and she said pranks and vandalism has been increasing each year and that it's much worse than when she was a student in our building about 10 years ago. Some of my friends are trying to avoid the bathrooms by holding it in. But I'm having a harder time doing that. What can be done?

Have your mom attend a PTA meeting with you. See if you can get a petition started. Try to get as many of the kids in your school that you can to sign that you'd like better facilities. Make sure to state in it that:
1.) the innocent students shouldn't be punished because a few vandalize the walls or toilets.
2.) that you would like to see the last year's budget break down because if it's a public school with state funding, that's public information.
3.)you are prepared to go to the newspaper with pictures of your bathrooms.

Once, we were told in 8th grade that there was no money to get us to a national tournament for english (and we beat the team that got second in the nation last year at states), but then we found out the teacher's lounge had just received new furniture that same grading period. The school system seemed to think that it was more important that the teachers have new furniture than to send us on a trip that we would have remembered for the rest of our lives.

Let us know if your mom's on board. You know, I bet you'll get quite a few signatures if you keep at it. Just make sure your school doesn't have some laws preventing you from doing this on school grounds. In that case, you can call the county courthouse and they will tell you exactly where school grounds end, right to the foot.

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.....hugging bunnies since 1969
www.daphneszoo.com

I believe Daphne's right in what she recommends. I'm a junior and I have been seeing the bathrooms get even more neglected in my three years at the school. I remember my freshman year being on the stool right after school and two custodians came in. One was telling the other that each restroom needed to be checked for soap, towels and toilet paper. Also, they were to clean off any toilet seats that needed it and to make sure that each toilet and urinal was flushed. Since I was quiet and in a doored stall, I don't think they knew I was in there. The intent was to make things look good for open house that night.

However, not all the parents bought the con job. My dad was suspicious as to why three of the boys bathrooms were locked and when he got home he asked me. I told him they were the ones that most of my friends and I tried to avoid because they received the most use and the least attention. For one thing, the doors were taken off all but one stall in each bathroom. Flushers on the urinals leaked and two of the urinals were cracked so bad there was a bag over them. You could see where there had been five sinks and now three had been taken off. I had a bowel movement the first day of school in one of the open stall toilets BUT it was so embarrassing that I learned, as did most of my friends, to go to one of the upstairs restrooms which received less use because at least one stall would have doors on it. Last year, it was believed that one of the girls in my 2nd hour world history class was suspended for a day because she was caught using the bathroom in the faculty lounge. Personally, a lot of us thought that was good thinking on her part!

My dad, however, became much more concerned when I was home sick for a week and he came, and with my locker code, picked up two of my textbooks. He was headed to his downtown office and didn't think he would make it, so he went across the hall to do what he has always called his "morning duty". He was surprised to find that ALL FOUR stalls had their doors off and that at 8:30 a.m. there was urine on most of the toilet seats. He said he talked to the head custodian who blamed many of the problems on the students and the lax administration that needs to catch vandals "in the act" in order to deal with the situation.

Holding his crap until he got to the office didn't help. I know he called our township's health department, but I don't know what's come of it. My girlfriend says the situation is about the same in her bathrooms BUT in the past few months the administration has installed double and even triple roll toilet paper holders and that a couple more doors have been put on stalls in their bathrooms.

I just finished my first semester of college. It is really the first time I have been away from home for an extended time. Because our mother doesn't live with us, my sister (who just started high school) and I have a close relationship. She's 13, a year younger than her classmates because she was promoted a year as a high-ability learner.

When I flew home for winter break last week, I learned that she, for the first time in her life, has been having trouble moving her bowels at school. Peeing is not an issue for her because it's the last thing she does before leaving home in the morning, and she's good for the day. (I wish I had a bladder like she does!)

She feels the need to shit everyday about mid-morning, but whether she holds it or gets a pass from her teacher to go on class times, she gets distracted , intimidated and sometimes is scared by the smell of the shit, smoke, slamming doors, and gross language she hears. And it doesn't help to get up the nerve to leave class, seat yourself on a cold seat and then find that the seat used is cracked and so loose on the toilet that its likely to drop you in along with your big one. Although she quickly changed stalls, she was so flustered by the experience that she wasn't able to complete her task.

Another issue with her is the lack of toilet seat covers which they have at the middle school, but not the high school. I never bothered to use one, but I guess she got use to them.

Each day I picked her ups at school last week she couldn't wait to het home and either initiate her shit or finish a crap cut short (she was called a lesbian by a 3rd hour student who pounded on her door and claimed she had an emergency). Unfortunately, she gave in to the bullying and vacated the stall.

The bathrooms at my college are better, and of course the students are older and more mature. A clogged toilet is immediately reported to campus security so that a custodian can be sent rather than allowing the pee and shit to pile up until it nears the top of the bowl (that happened twice that I know of in high school and a drastic cleanup was needed).

I keep telling my sister that the situation will get better, but I know sometimes it's hard to become a believer.

BS - sadly an all too familiar story on these pages. People don't realise how much long term damage this sort of thing can do. I hope your sis doesn't end up unable to shit in public toilets or suffer from constipation through repressing her urges.

I went to a K-8 school and in 196l when I "graduated" to high school, I was appalled by how large, dirty and overall unkempt the bathrooms were. GottaGoGirl's right. A toilet--I think unisex would do--for each classroom is the answer and obviously would add more accountability. By that I mean a 2nd hour student complaining about crap on the seat or a deliberately jammed toilet (my daughter teaches middle school where complete notebooks are tossed into the stools)could be traced to a specific student or students.

I feel GottaGoGirl's suggestion would also cut down on the congregating, hanging-out which was prevalent in the girl's bathrooms along with the smoking. It would be very easy to enforce the one-student occupancy rule and eliminate the need for teachers to give up valuable time to walk through the large bathrooms, peek in the stalls, check bathroom passes, and try and bust smokers (my son-in-law is forced to do this each afternoon at his high school).

I was constipated and pee shy for my four years of high school. At least once a week, I would give up my lunch hour (actually 28 minutes) to walk the two blocks home so I could crap in privacy and cleanliness. When my parents found out from a neighbor seeing me, I was told that I just needed to buck-up and adjust to using public bathrooms. That was sure the great advice I needed to hear!

Hamster, you're entirely correct about the "long term damage" because for years as an adult and later as a non-traditional college student, I would always find an excuse for swinging by the house when I needed to poop or pee rather than using a service station or K-Mart-type toilet. Those days ended in the mid-80s at a Lionel Richie concert when I had diarrhea real bad and need to sit down three separate times and make the best of it. That was the best decisions I've ever made and I saved the money which otherwise I probably would have spent on psycho-therapy!

Where I teach, the teachers use the same restrooms as the students. The boys' room has no doors on the stalls, and I have had several b.m.'s in that room, a couple of times when other persons came in after me and presumably knew I was there and what I was doing. The room is reasonably clean, and as far as I know, no bullying takes place. The boys in the school obviously use the place as well, and mostly flush, though I have found a couple of doozies in the bowls. Students have 3 minutes between classes, obviously short for a b.m. (and most of them would not choose to do their b.m. when others are there between classes anyway); when they have to go, they get a pass from me, go and do their business, and return. Rarely a problem, though some students have been known to abuse the privilege and have (forbidden!) cell-phone conversations from the bathroom. I heartily approve having faculty and students use the same facilities; it does impose a sort of order. As far as I know, my personal prestige, such as it is, has not suffered by my use of the students' bathroom.

Charlotte - glad you are sorted now. Not a pleasant way to overcome your phobia - but effective. I admit I would have done exactly as you did whilst at school - but my father was at home all day!! I'd have probably got the lecture about going in the morning before school. But he was like clockwork - I was just the opposite!!

I overcame the public toilet phobia when I was a student. I and friends went into town and I needed to crap real bad. I decided to wait till we got back, but then they decided to go to the pictures. The idea was great, but no way could I sit through the film like that! It was either find somewhere and go - or miss out on the pics. I told myself not to be a complete wuss and did the deed in a department store. It wasn't so bad after all!

I found out about PoopReport six years ago when I was a junior in high school. My boyfriend and all his friends read it; actually to a degree that eventually grossed me out. Now I'm student teaching in a large high school, and like MSG, I use the student bathrooms. I have my crap most every morning when I come in about 7 a.m. and I return for a pee at mid-morning and mid-afternoon. While I don't know many of the students because of the size of the school, sometimes we have some cordial words while in line or at the sinks. Once last month I forgot to check the toilet paper supply before sitting for my crap and a girl passed me some from under he stall partition. Thank God for the early morning band students and their need to use the facilities before taking the field for marching practice. What MSG doesn't understand, however, is that some veteran teachers (my cooperating teacher has been at the school since 1970!)won't think of using the student toilets located right across the hall from our classroom. On numerous occasions, she has asked me to cover for her while she goes downstairs to use the one faculty bathroom. And even then, she'll come back about 10 minutes later and ask if I can smell smoke from the bathroom across the hall. I'm not in a position to tell her that she could have been a deterrant to such activity. Also a couple of times, we've had both girls and boys come in and want to use Kleenex from our room's box because there's no toilet paper left in their bathrooms. She'll make some brilliant remark about how it takes intelligence to pack some in your purse or pocket before leaving home. Some teachers -- although effective in their classrooms -- are so set in their ways they aren't about to change. But if I say anything more I might not get my 10 credits and license.

I don't know if I'd want my history or English teacher crapping or peeing right next to me in the next stall. Since I don't usually flush, because I had just taken a big shit and was wiping with my panties and skirt down once last year, when I flushed and I couldn't get off the seat, up and out before the bowl ran over on me, I'd be afraid that she would bust me. But there could be some good stories if I was the next person to use a toilet and a teacher came out with a full bowl unflushed or pee on the seat. I wonder which of my teachers might be the squat pisser? And what would she say if I asked her for her pass?

In Need of a Break suggests an interesting scenario. My junior year of high school I was in the bathroom, all 5 stalls were in use, and I looked under the stall door of the closest one and noticed the legs and shoes of an adult (what an atrocious fashion statement with mismatched tennis shoes!). There were a couple groans and grunts and then I heard a sigh of relief. She had dropped the big one! About 5 seconds later she tapped on the stall partition and asked the girl in the adjacent stall to hand her some toilet paper. A couple of minutes later out walks my science teacher who was mean and we all hated. Although I smiled and said Hi to her, I just stood there and couldn't bring myself to going in and peeing in the toilet she had just used. Was it her groans, creeky knees that cracked as she got up, the fact the she forgot to flush, or as my friends later suggested, the fact that this 60-year-old lady who bragged of having two masters degrees had forgotten to check for toilet paper first? I don't know but I waited until the next toilet opened.

When I was in college, the dorm staff would tape notices to the inside of the stall doors -- "John Jots" they called them.
The problem was that a number of students would light them on fire and watch them burn. Or they would try to flush them and plug the loo.
My final year, they removed all of the doors and put in shower curtains on the stalls. At least one got ripped down every week.
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You have the right to remain Silent but Deadly....

The city of San Francisco has computerized public pay toilets in downtown that offer privacy and are vandal resistant. For 25 cents or a token you get 20 minutes of poop time. Inside is all stainless steel with no protrusions.

Amenities include an auto flush toilet and a slot in wall for washing and drying. Stick your hands over the sink slot and warm water with soap is provided without having to touch any knobs. The same recess then gives off a blast of air to dry with.

Whether or not your finished, when the alloted time expires the door opens and you must leave. The chamber then resets it's self by closing the door and hosing down the toilet area like a giant dishwasher. An entire unit occupies less then 90 square feet.

A school could set up individual units to have doors open directly to the hallways. Any passing authority figure could see all who are entering and leaving, thereby reducing opportunities for maleficence.

San Francisco has had mixed results using these units, however they have cost nothing because they double as advertising billboards.

How will you find somebody willing to take a job standing around handing out toilet paper and soap? Wait a second - I might take it, since I've had a hell of a lot of my overtime eliminated from my main job.

Don't mind me, I'm just another disgruntled postal employee.