Bathroom Vandalism Saps Funds
October 26, 2018
The boy’s bathroom was vandalized on October 15, with soap dispensers were emptied and broken, and soap and toilet paper being spread across the floors.
“I’m really disappointed that we have students here at Campolindo High School that would be so disrespectful to our facilities here and the people that clean them,” said Associate Principal Laura Lee.
According to Lee, this is costly and time-consuming for the school and the custodians because “it really takes away from their ability to just keep our school looking nice the way it does,” said Lee. “The other aspect of it is that the trashing is destructive and it’s destroying school property, and it puts a tremendous cost, and we’re having to spend money on replacing things.”
Jesus Paniagua was 1 of the custodians that cleaned the mess left by the students. “Sometimes, they break the soap dispensers, and they put them on the ground. So when that happens, the floor is slippery, and we have to go with a water hose, and we wash the whole floor,” he said. Every time a soap dispenser is broken, he added, the school must pay for a replacement.
Students have been known to clog toilets with toilet paper. For Paniagua, keeping the bathrooms clean takes a lot of work.
Senior Luka Brown noticed the mess and posted photos to Snapchat. “I noticed that there was a lot of trash and entities in the bathroom that were very disturbing and disruptive, and I noticed that there were trash cans being put on top of the stalls. It’s kind of gross and disgusting, and there should be an end to it,” Brown said. “I also noticed that there’s been soap put on the ground so kids could possibly slip and hurt themselves.”
Senior Diego Antezana confirmed that he saw the damage recorded on Campo students’ Snapchat stories.
Antezana feels that administration “couldn’t have prevented something like that from happening,” adding that he believes that the perpetrators are “a group of people who are doing [vandalism] constantly.”
This behavior, said Antezana, “needs to be put to an end. Someone needs to stake out and see who is doing this stuff.”
Lee said she expects all students to have respect for their school and staff. She believes the administration shouldn’t have to lock up soap dispensers and “bolt things to the wall” to prevent vandalism.
“It’s one thing when we have normal wear and tear and have to do repairs on things, it’s another when there is a student on our campus destroying things and we have to cut into our costs to replace things that had no reasons to be broken,” Lee added.
Paniagua agreed: “They have to stop doing that.”
“Obviously, people should be held to a higher standard and keep the bathrooms clean, as the janitors are doing a good job doing so, and, honestly, I don’t think there really is a big solution to this,” he said.
