A shi**y policy

I've heard of lame policies before to control students in school but this is really dumb. Hillborough County school officials allow all but one bathroom for each sex to be closed at a high school for over 2,000 students. This policy was enacted so students wouldn't disrupt classes. Just another example of why our schools are failing. We have idiots running them.

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TAMPA - Chamberlain High School junior Katie McNulty faced a dilemma Monday.

She had six minutes to get to class but needed to use the restroom. In front of her was a line of about 20 girls waiting to use five bathroom stalls.

On any other day, McNulty might have tried to use one of the school's other six bathrooms for girls. But on Monday that wasn't an option because only one restroom for girls and one for boys were open for Chamberlain's 2,183 students.

The school closed all bathrooms Friday except for two in the main hallway. The shutdown was in response to a bomb threat that was written inside a bathroom last week, Hillsborough County schools spokeswoman Linda Cobbe said.

The shutdown policy could violate health codes, said Doug Holt, director of the Hillsborough County Health Department. Holt said schools are required to keep all restrooms open as students change classes.

"If we found during the entire day you only had two bathrooms accessible for the whole school, we would feel that would be not in compliance with the rules," Holt said.

Holt plans to send a county inspector to Chamberlain today.

Cobbe said the district was unaware of the health department policy and did not knowingly violate health codes. If the inspector finds the school in violation, Cobbe said, the policy will be changed.

The policy was enacted to eliminate one of the ways students can make threats, which can disrupt classes for hours. Threats such as the one found at Chamberlain last week are more common during exams, which start Wednesday at Chamberlain, Cobbe said.

"This is just a way to discourage students from getting into mischief in unsupervised bathrooms," she said.

Although school officials view the limited bathroom availability as a way to stop major disruptions, students and parents say it just creates problems during an already stressful time.

"It's been so much more disruptive for me because I have to worry about getting to the bathroom, too," McNulty said.

The policy was not formally announced to students, said McNulty, who discovered the shutdowns after trying to enter several locked bathrooms. The secrecy surrounding the policy has her wondering why the administration tried to keep students in the dark.

"It makes me feel like they think they can just slide it by us," McNulty said.

Carol Santana, mother of a Chamberlain sophomore, has been raising questions about bathroom shutdowns since last year when the school used the policy twice. Santana said she took her concerns to administrators and PTA volunteers but has received little information.

"It's ridiculous that there's no communication with parents," she said.

If the school is not found in violation of health codes, the limited bathroom availability will last until Friday, when school lets out for winter break. Some monitored bathrooms will reopen Wednesday when exams start.

Cobbe said that she understands the concerns of students and parents but that the district has to put student safety first.