EDUCATIONALLY SPEAKING -- Gay Geiser-Sandoval

The following is a guide of tips from my student to yours in choosing

a bathroom at a high school or junior high school in this district:

1. Don’t drink anything all day, so you won’t have to use the bathroom

at school. I know it is bad for your health, especially if you have a big

workout in physical education, but better to be safe than sorry.

2. If you ignored Rule 1, don’t wait until the last minute to try to

find a bathroom. Many of the bathrooms are locked right after lunch, so

forget about making that mad dash, as things get more desperate.

3. If you have decided to take the plunge, find the bathroom used by

the oldest students at school. For some reason, those tend to be in the

best shape. Remember, if everyone takes care of the bathroom, it will

take care of you.

4. If you think you can run into the bathroom to look in the mirror to

fix your contact lenses, forget it. Boys have no mirrors and girls have a

piece of shiny metal, kind of like the “mirrors� found in prisons.

5. Is the bathroom unsanitary because it hasn’t been cleaned? Call it

a field trip into a different culture, time or place. If you can find a

paper towel, use it to touch the appliances. If not, hope your mom packed

you some wipes or sanitizer in your backpack. Use those generously after

your trip into the toilet.

6. Here are the more defined rules for picking which toilet to use:

a. Does the stall have a door? If so, enter the stall. If not, try

another stall.

b. Does the door have a lock? If so, see if it works. If not, see if

you can hold the door closed with your foot and still use the toilet.

c. Does the stall have toilet paper? If so, it’s your lucky day. If

not, scout around or shout to the person in the stall next to you to see

if they will send some your way.

d. Does the stall have a toilet seat cover? If so, that’s equivalent

to finding a four-leaf clover. Go make up that calculus exam you have

been putting off.

e. Does the toilet have a whole seat instead of just a half of one

that somehow broke in half a few months back? Once you know about the

toilet with the half-seat problem, avoid it except in emergencies.

f. Is the toilet in the middle of its own private lake? If so, let’s

hope you have on your waders or your platforms. Actually, platforms came

into vogue in the Middle Ages to avoid close contact with streets that

were used as elimination sites.

g. Does the toilet constantly run, meaning that it is using water

unnecessarily in this vast desert area that we live in? Unfortunately,

that is not grounds for toilet elimination, but it is affecting the

environment. At least if you use it, that water will be put to good use.

For those of you who remember passing a multimillion-dollar bond to

fix up the physical facilities at our schools, you may wonder why the

above guide is necessary. Some moms who read the implementation plan for

the Measure A money wondered the same thing. They thought fixing the

bathrooms would be the No. 1 priority at each and every school. They

thought that the fact that most kids don’t consume any liquids all day

and spend the afternoon in agony instead of stepping into a campus

bathroom would be considered a health and safety issue, making it a No. 1

priority in the seven-step list of priorities to get the schools put back

up to snuff.

Instead, they found out that bathrooms fall into priority No. 4. That

means that if the state doesn’t match the district’s fix-it money,

because of state budget constraints, and the bond money only gets us

through priorities No. 1 to 3, we might have to make the Bathroom Guide

part of the registration packet. Some schools aren’t slated for major

renovations for four years.

The school administration assured us all at its last school board

meeting that the issues of bathroom cleanliness and broken fixtures and

appliances would be taken care of right away. What won’t be fixed is a

redo of each bathroom, until that part of the school is getting

remodeled. While the reasoning for that approach is sound, you may ask

your kids to report on whether each bathroom is clean and in good working

order. If not, give them a copy of the guide.

* GAY GEISER-SANDOVAL is a Costa Mesa resident. Her column runs

Tuesdays. She may be reached by e-mail at o7 [email protected] .