Bond issue: Let’s build more bathrooms

As we get closer to the bond election, I have just a few more details to share with you. First, ballots will be mailed on April 14 and must be mailed back by April 28. If you want to drop them off at the courthouse on election day, you can do that as well. As you consider the bond issue, please make use of the tax calculator on the bond website, www.polson.k12.mt.us/bond, so that you can make an informed decision.

I’m Katrina Venters, mom of two, taxpayer, and high school English teacher, and we’re going to talk about bathrooms. This week and next week, we will take a look at some of the things we may take for granted in our own homes or non-school work places and how the bond, if passed, will improve day-to-day life for our staff and students.

Did you know that the entire four years my oldest son was at Polson Middle School, he claims he did not use the bathroom there even once? While he may be exaggerating, let’s look at some numbers. PMS has only two female student bathrooms with four stalls each and two male student bathrooms with two urinals and two toilets each. With the current population, if students used the bathroom only once a day, they only have 1.7 minutes to use it. If every kid uses the bathroom twice, they have less than a minute each time.

Reviewing those numbers makes my son’s story a little more believable and therefore more concerning. This student bathroom problem exists at all buildings in our district except Cherry Valley. While the bathrooms at Cherry Valley have adequate student space, these bathrooms have not been updated in years. Though clean, they appear worn down and many of the fixtures do not function.

At Linderman, there is only one set of student bathrooms for the entire school. Because they are so old, often sinks, dryers and toilets are out of order while being fixed, leaving even fewer facilities for students. Combine an inadequate number of toilets and urinals with aging and worn fixtures, and you’ve got a mess.

At Polson High School, you’ll find a reasonable number of toilets and urinals but the same problem with wear and tear, made worse by student vandalism. This was a problem pre-TikTok, but last year’s TikTok challenges promoted the defacing of school facilities, which resulted in broken sinks, pipes and toilets. Though my son enjoys many things about being a high school student now, he does wish he could use the staff bathroom because the PHS bathrooms are generally unpleasant.

Although student bathroom problems are the main focus, staff face challenges with inadequate bathroom spaces as well. For instance, if you teach in a mod at the high school or at the western end of the middle school, you have to make a very specific plan for how you drink your coffee in the morning. This includes calculating the several minutes it takes to reach a staff bathroom and return to your classroom.

It often means teachers limit their fluid intake until a time that will allow them to reach a bathroom on their prep period or lunch because a passing period (the time when students pass from one class to another) is simply not enough time to get to a bathroom and back.

As you consider how to vote on the bond, please contemplate what sort of bathroom access you think is reasonable for this basic necessity.