no soap??????

[Miss C]

I work in a small private school. Today the assistant administrator came in and told the boys in my class that there was no soap in the boys' restroom. The reason, she said, is that someone has been dispensing soap all over the floor and making messes with it (not surprising and certainly inconvenient!). But I guess I'm having a problem with the fact that no boy in the entire school can wash their hands with soap after visiting the restroom because of one kid's poor choice. The restrooms are right by the office. If things are this bad, couldn't they keep a dispenser at the office and have the boys come out for soap and then go back to wash? Just until the problem clears up or whatever? The goal, supposedly, is to get the guilty party to 'fess up. But if I were a kid, I may say I did it, even if I didn't, just to get soap back. Yuck! This is nasty!

 

[imalithc]

soap

Can you provide your child with some of that antibacterial wipe on lotion? That is gross to not have soap. I'm sure parent complaints will stop that problem.

 

[SC]

Gross

It's pretty gross to not provide soap in the boys' bathroom. Honestly, they probably weren't using it anyway (you know how boys are). For some reason it seems that boys across America think that the bathroom is where they can cause trouble, and I'm guessing it's because most teachers can't go in there. It was probably more than one boy involved in putting the soap everywhere. If I were in your situation, I would put a bottle of GermX in the classroom for my students to use when they come back.

 

[fun_friend]

We don't provide soap in our restrooms either. I have some in my room if kids need it. It's too bad that the kids abuse simple conveniences like soap, paper towels or toilet paper. A year doesn't go by that kids don't dump other people's belongings into the toilet or toss toilet paper all over the place. The graffiti is also a problem. We don't want a school in disrepair like the one portrayed on Oprah last week!

I would suggest to kids to use soap in the teachers' rooms whenever possible or at least the hand sanitizer that many of us also provide (at our own expense).

 

[Ima Teacher]

Our restrooms are locked during class time. They're only open between classes, and there is a teacher in the restroom then. If a child has to go to the bathroom during class, they have to use the restroom in the first aid room . . . right by the office.

They just don't realize how their antics hurt everyone in the long run.

 

[GB]

Gb

Get Germ-X or Purell waterless cleaner. You need it.

 

[Jackie]

Bathrooms

Our school does not provide soap or paper towels in the bathroom. The children were never taught apparantly how to use these things correctly. When we did have them in the school the children would clog the sinks and toilets with the paper towels and spray the soap all over the bathroom. I ask parents to bring in instant hand sanitizer for their own child if they want their child to have clean hands. If they don't bring it in, they walk around with dirty hands all day...yes its gross...

 

[saralara]

Sanitizer

I also buy hand sanitizer. Our school has been through rounds of parent complaints and still does not have soap or towels most of the time. I simply take a pump full of Purell with me to group restroom time and put another one by the sink in our room. Not ideal...but if we don't do something to wash our hands we all end up getting sick.

Next year I'm weaning them off the very expensive Purell and teaching them how to use the sink in the room (I teach pre-k). It's time consuming, but washing your hands is a very basic life skill that some of my students don't seem to have.

 

[anonymouse]

That isn't against the health code?

I am really surprised. Think about everything that they are touching in your classroom. That is really gross. A few years ago one of my students dropped the bathroom pass in the toilet and fished it out and brought it back to my room and hung it up without telling me. One of my kids told me a month later when I replaced it because it was looking worn out.

 

[magpie]

Bathroom Antics

What is it with the bathrooms and kids. We had a boy who would go to the bathroom and wipe his poop all over the place. Yuck! It is a kid who has been doing it since 2nd grade (he is now in 4th grade). When the parents were told they said, we know he does it at home too. Wow - something really wrong with that kid. Most of the time we have to have a male teacher in the bathroom with the boys. Of course there are only two in the building so it doesn't always work. The girls are sometime no better. They love to write stuff on the walls and doors. Often we have to check them before the go to make sure they don't have any pencils. What is wrong with kids? This year too I have never seen so many kids that have to go to the bathroom so often. I think it must have something to do with self control. They can't control any part of themselves.

 

[emme]

soap

I send the children to wash before we eat lunch. I have one of those soap pumps that dispenses the soap in a fluffy foam. It uses only a tablespoon of liquid soap per container, and I usually only fill it once a week, so not a big expense. I put the soap into their cupped hands as they leave, so off they go to the bathroom with hands full of puffs of soap. At least I know it touched their hands at one point during the day!

 

[anonymous]

not flushing used toilet paper down the toile

We have had a problem with students wiping themselves and then throwing the toilet paper on the ground. Apparently, no one taught them how to flush it down the toilet. Our poor plant workers have to pick up toilet paper and feces every week (and people wonder why they never get to our classrooms). We have discussed this problem with the children, but I guess it is very hard to break a bad habbit. I really wonder what their homes look like!

 

[c green]

Hygiene

My bathroom problem has been that if graffiti goes up in one of the bathrooms (we have a problem with middle schoolers with Sharpies), the administration locks the bathroom until the janitor can remove it. I understand their motivation, but it's intensely frustrating when you have a kid who needs to use the bathroom and has to get a pass upstairs or out to the gym to find one that's open.

I had Purell in my room for a while, but a couple of boys started using it as hair gel. (Don't even ask. I can't figure it out myself. All I can say is, their scalps were probably really germ-free for a while. And since they wear their hair short, the drying effect probably wasn't a big problem. Girls, I'd worry about split ends.)

I keep getting the sink in my room clogged with paper towels--and for some reason the kids all think they need a big wad of paper towel to wipe their mouths every time they drink water. Same kids who tell me I'm killing trees every time they get a packet of work.

About bathroom passes--when I did student teaching in a high school, one of the teachers had a filthy stuffed Barney dinosaur which was her bathroom pass. If you weren't desperate enough to take the Barney, you didn't have to go badly enough. The kids wrapped it in paper towels, kicked it down the hall, you name it. On one notable occasion we got a kid returned to the room by the security guard--she'd wandered off after going to the restroom. Her story was that she'd just gone to office for some errand or other, when the security guy intercepted her--"and he said the Barney was infected".

Probably was.

 

[Ella in LA]

Oh man! This brings back memories!!

In ten years of teaching in public schools, not ONE school kept toilet paper, paper towels, or soap in the bathrooms! Seriously! Over the years, we (teachers) learned how to cope. We created bathroom baskets, that we carried to the bathrooms. Each basket (one for boys' and one for girls') had the essentials. We (teachers and paraprofessionals) literally dispensed the toilet paper to each individual child. We called ourselves TTTD's (temporary toilet tissue dispensers). The children used the restroom, came back out for soap in one hand and paper towel under the chin, then went back in. We had to check the restrooms after our class finished each time.
Is it any wonder that we felt we were getting enough instructional time???? I THINK NOT!
Fortunately, after those ten years, I got out of the public school system and now teach in a private childcare Pre-K classroom. WITH TWO BATHROOMS FULLY STOCKED!!!!! (Can you tell I really prefer my current position?)

 

[fun_friend]

When I was a child in third grade, the students were all asked to send in a roll of paper towels. Before lunch, the teacher took us for a bathroom break. She gave each of us a paper towel to dry our hands with. I don't remember the details of soap.

In our middle school restrooms, there is a soap dispenser that offers watery soap when there is any in it. The kids can use the air dryer to start the drying process on their hands. They can finish drying hands on their pants, which is what I do when there are no towels available for me. Ideally, soap and towels would be available, but kids aren't responsible about care for these items. I guess these items must be earned with age and maturity.

Graffiti is also a problem in our school.