From a column in the Newtonite, Newton North student Jared Perlo writes..
I can’t remember the last time I walked into a boys’ bathroom without the floor littered with random rags of paper towel. And, to make matters worse, there is often “nastiness,” as one of my friends described it, left for the lucky person who uses the stall later.
yes, Perlo know what the rest of us are thinking..
After being presented with a nearly $200 million school by the education-obsessed citizens of Newton, one would expect that the students who are so lucky to attend this school could resist from drawing on walls and dropping paper towels at their feet.
But he blames the custodians too…
If students pick up the slack by cleaning up after themselves, then it is only fair that custodians should ensure that soap dispensers should be routinely checked to make sure that there is enough soap for the thousands of students (a.k.a. germ-carriers) who use this school, and stall doors should be repaired so that they actually, well, close. With these basic repairs and an increased effort on behalf of this school’s students, the bathrooms might eventually shirk their less-than-desirable reputations.
His skill in a posing a persuasive argument is brilliant (already). Read the full column.
This all goes to prove that values come from human beings who instill and demand values and not from glorious edifices. Learning is better done in a candle-lit log cabin as did Abe Lincoln and not in a glitzy waste of money that just spoils the kids and makes them think they are more special and entitled than they really are.
@Barry: What makes you so sure that a teenage Abe Lincoln wasn’t a bathroom slob too? I mean there must have been a reason why this was invented.
Greg,
It’s interesting how you latched onto the least important thing I said. My main point was that you can’t create civil behavior and a desire to learn just by building expensive schools. Materialistic people think the glitz is important. People with social and academic substance respect substance.
@Barry: Take a deep breath. It was a joke…or at least attempted bathroom humor.
” People with social and academic substance respect substance.”
That was Larry Craig’s exact point when he said he was picking up toilet paper.
Good grief, it takes no more than a few minutes and a few people to turn a sparkling clean public restroom into a hell hole. It doesn’t matter whether the facility is in a first class hotel, run down motel or $200 million dollar school: some people are slobs no matter where they are. Yes, it’s important for kids to learn not to be slobs and to be respectful of property no matter where they live, play or go to school. The end.
In 1997 NPS had 82 custodians and 7 maintenance staff. In 2013 NPS had 82 custodians and 2 maintenance staff, plus 1,000 more students (and additional staff to support the students).
Underfunding basic cleaning and maintenance has been going on for years. Compounded by custodian contracts being just like teacher contracts, once they have tenure quality does not affect their pay or job security. ( p. 21 http://www3.newton.k12.ma.us/sites/default/files/users/123/9.24.12%20Executed%20Custodian%20Contract.PDF – thank you School Committee for posting this on-line).
It would be great if the students could take on more responsibility for keeping their schools clean – but – I believe this is barred by the custodians contract too: “Work Jurisdiction All work presently performed by bargaining unit employees shall continued to be performed exclusively by bargaining unit employees in all buildings used by the School Department.” p. 23
This, I believe, is why parents can’t even hang a bulletin board in a classroom, except on Newton Serves day.
Barry, I think you and I should remind Greg that it wasn’t our newspaper that demanded that Newton voters stop talking about Newton North and start building it.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/newton/opinion/x121915046#axzz2UqM26EUH
I know, and now the boys’ bathrooms are messy. Clearly the school should never have been built.
@Tirica: LOL!
@Barry: LOL means I found that to be funny.
Tricia, if the public sector unions were willing to accept compensation growth that is 1.5% below revenue growth, we can afford all the capital improvement projects that are planned and all the maintenance preservation projects that are talked about and we wouldn’t have to deal with the following unpleasant circumstances:
Jobs would not need to be cut
Scheduled Working Hours of remaining staff would not need to be cut
Compensation packages would not need to be cut
Taxpayers would not have to deal with quinquennial overrides of Proposition 2.5 in order to raise taxes in order to fund these projects, programs and services.
Lucia and Lisap, I would like to remind you that it wasn’t the former members of Moving Newton Forward With Fiscal Responsibility and the Newton Taxpayers Association that insisted on giving a monopoly on school building cleaning services to a government workers union.
We currently have no competition in our school system when it comes to cleaning services. We must see ourselves as taxpayers who are funding and purchasing services. It should be irrelevant whether we provide the service in house or buy it, especially because we’ve been able to buy other ancillary services cheaper from someone else. A case in point: We bid out the school lunch program a few years ago. Not only did we save $1M/year but more importantly the quality skyrocketed. It became a much better product. What was the occurrence? The occurrence was competition.
We farmed out our trash, it works effectively and its very cost-efficient because we brought in competition. Competition won, we have a great service.
I believe we could get a better service that is also more cost effective if we were to introduce competition into every level of our cleaning program. We have 21 school buildings, what if we solicited bids to clean five of them? Let’s see what we could buy with our tax dollars rather than getting it from the same monopolistic source we’re getting it from now. I think we could achieve great savings.
Greg,
I never clicked on your link because the comment seemed so silly.
My point really is that, and I know it’s too late, if we spent less on the extravagant accoutrements of NNHS, then the budget would have allowed for more maintenance. We do pay yearly for the loans we took out to pay for it. And if we didn’t indulge our kids in an extravagant school with every activity and amenity one can think of they would see school as principally a tool for real education. Sorry to those who are interested, but culinary arts isn’t basic education worthy of an expensive kitchen and dining room. Etc.
And if we informed the kids that it is more important to have basic human qualities like respect, honesty, diligence, cleanliness (hmmm, sounds like the Boy Scout oath), and less emotion over sex education, sympathizing with social and sexual deviance, and legalization of the pot they supposedly love to smoke, perhaps they’d understand that they are messing up the school they live in. The parents are setting the example for the kids also, by themselves focusing away from basic human values and getting emotional about nonsense as many people on this blog often do. And by defending little Johnny and Susie against the teachers and administration when the kids misbehave.
Greg,
I know what LOL means. And Tricia. Your comment (LOL) is just adding to the stupidity of how people view the role of schools in a community.
Many teenage boys are basically pigs, and that blame falls on their parents. But it is exceptionally troubling to me when I read about school bathrooms running out of soap and paper towels. There is NO excuse for that!
@Joshua – I do not disagree with anything you have posted but I believe you missed my point which is really quite simple: people, not all but enough to notice, are slobs. They are slobs because they are inconsiderate of others. This has nothing to do with whether there are enough janitors or funds to clean up after these individuals. This has nothing to do with whether they are rich and pampered or destitute. It has everything to do with simple courtesy and common civility. I agree that these are lessons learned at home that carry us forward in life. As I read the column, with the exception of supplies running short, most of the problems stem from individual behavior. Money, or the lack of it, didn’t cause that and won’t fix it. But that’s just my two cents.
Lisap, I think the same inconsiderate, uncivil, discourteous spoiled brat mentality of the high school kids comes from the inconsiderate, uncivil, discourteous spoiled brat mentality of their parents (who demand that other people pay for the goods and services that they primarily benefit from).
The reason why these kids have no respect for public property is because their parents don’t either.
Lucia, in a cafeteria situation you clean up the table and get a comfortable seat (no matter what union rules say). No one is going to touch stuff in the bathroom, regardless of unions.
The comments in this thread suggest some public bathrooms are always clean and it’s students that mess there’s up. Come on now, nearly all public bathrooms get neglected unless staff comes by and cleans multiple times per day. People make messes in there and don’t want to touch anything.
Had we sprung for the bidets, none of this would have happened. Short-sighted Newton voters.
(That was a joke).
I don’t see what this topic has to do with the cost of the school- how we manage the custodial requirements, yes, to a point- but it’s about kids acting like kids but still needing to learn some respect.
@Joshua – you keep using the word “demand” in the context of folks who supported the override. There were no demands. There were ballot questions, supporters for each side making their case, and then voting. It’s called democracy. And basically calling all parents who voted for the override “inconsiderate”, “uncivil”, and “discourteous”? I think you’ve got a pot vs kettle thing going there.
Hoss – the students could be responsible for refilling soap and paper towel dispensers. It could be on their work lists in the K-5 classrooms, just like taking out the recycling is.
Lucia — Ok, I didn’t understand the prior point. Sorry. When I was in junior high, I volunteered to work with the janitors. We stacked stuff coming in the loading dock, and did other types of back room stuff, including answering the phone.
But the soap solution is probably that we need bigger dispensers.
@Joshua, or, kids show disrespect for public property because they are teenagers going through rebellion, trying to establish their own identity and independence, and trying to “stick it to the man” which includes the values that their parents hold dear. Kids. Do. Dumb. Stuff. That’s one of the primary reasons why we have a separate juvenile justice system to deal with the immature, juvenile brain. Should kids at the high school do a better job of cleaning up after themselves? Yup! Should we transpose this into an indictment of the character of the citizens of Newton? No freaking way Dude.
Tricia, two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner is also democracy.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ksC5zhaEPyE/Tsg0R0xDPOI/AAAAAAAABLQ/EKlDlwVCfYc/s1600/wolfsheep.jpg
Lisap, unfortunately, I think the parents of these kids have failed to grow up, mature and teach their kids how to behave.
These children and their parents ought to be ashamed of themselves. There is absolutely no excuse for this kind of behavior. Disgusting.
We still have voc ed right? Janitorial/custodial services is a worthy profession. What about adding janitorial/custodial services to out voc ed (if it’s not already) and have the kids help out our janitors for credit?
This all reminds me of an architect friend many years ago who worked for a year on the reconstruction of Suffolk Downs, including the rest rooms. We attended the “grand re-opening” and he was aghast that drunks still puked and urinated on the floor of his newly tiled bathroom. Pigs will be pigs.
Post signs in the bathrooms that video cameras are in use. (Just don’t mention that they’re not actually in use in the bathrooms.) Problem solved!
@Emily: you clearly don’t have any teenage sons.
Emily Norton, Gov’t lying to anyone is utterly wrong, right? It doesn’t matter if it’s a question about relations w an intern, toilet paper and foot taps, or cameras at HS.
Joshua wrote:
“I think the same inconsiderate, uncivil, discourteous spoiled brat mentality of the high school kids comes from the inconsiderate, uncivil, discourteous spoiled brat mentality of their parents (who demand that other people pay for the goods and services that they primarily benefit from).”
The last sentence..are referring to people who have no kids in school having to pay for the high school or other school buildings? Just curious. Because if that is what you are saying, you are way off base. The quality of our schools (yeah, they may not be what they used to be but they are still damned good) makes Newton a desirable community and helps the resale value of all of our homes. I don’t use many services the city offers – there may be some that YOU use and I do not, yet I have to pay for – but I understand that I have to pay for them in my taxes because we are a COMMUNITY.
Native Newtonian, let’s try to remember that we live in a city, not a school district. School spending accounts for ~65% of the city’s budget (57% School Committee and 8% for school expenditures that are buried in the city-side budget) and have crowded out other important items that benefit all of Newton’s residents as opposed to a well-organized and privileged minority.
Despite the fact that school spending has nearly tripled since members of the Newton Democratic City Committee have had an iron group on governing Newton, the quality of the Newton Public Schools system has steadily declined.
Perhaps taxpayers could tolerate this spending surge if the School Committee used these dollars to maintain and improve buildings, but they didn’t. The School Committee did not use the dollars to institute foreign languages in our elementary schools, either. And, the School Committee did not use the dollars to institute tuition-free full-day kindergarten or to create cutting edge 21st century technology programs that improve education and reduce costs.
The School Committee did, however, spend the money “elsewhere” to feed the status quo. Compensation costs within Newton Public Schools now represent 84 percent of its $187.7 million budget, and that is too much.
Josh, you declare that NPS pays 84% of it’s budget on compensation, “…and that is too much.” Yet your benchmark community, Hingham (an inappropriate comparator to Newton), spends the same percentage.
What’s with that? Why is it too much for Newton?
Apparently I must make a disclosure here that I do not endorse, and have never endorsed, nor will ever endorse, the government lying to its people.
However it is an interesting behavior change question, and my day job entails attempting to bring about behavior change — generally in the area of environmental actions but the same principles apply to other themes.
When it comes to binge drinking for example, studies have shown that when college students are told that the majority of students do NOT binge drink, it brings down binge drinking rates.
Perhaps we could install signage or use other means to communicate that the vast majority of bathroom users flush the toilet, use good aim, etc etc. One could imagine employing some sort of humor to garner additional attention and support.
PS @Greg I have 3 future teenage boys so this topic is of particular interest 😉
@Emily – we used this very effective security system at the Museum of Bad Art
Terry, Hingham spends 80.7% as opposed to the 84.3% Newton spends. If Newton’s compensation percentage equaled what Hingham spent as a proportion of compensation, Newton would save $6,709,453 annually.
That $6.7M/year is too much because instead of going to compensation, it could cover the Ward, Williams and Pierce projects that will take place from 2019-2023 without raising taxes via an override or by cutting services. It could even be phased in by reducing salary growth to a rate that is 1.5% below revenue growth. At least that is still a better deal than the outright compensation cuts Dan Fahey advocated for in 2009.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/newton/opinion/opinion_columnists/x426329426/Fahey-Is-a-Newton-employee-wage-freeze-enough?zc_p=0#axzz2QLtZHBwd
Newton’s general fund spending per student of $15,086 is 48% higher than Hingham’s $10,178/student and I believe that this is primarily due to compensation and secondarily because of building construction costs.
I will be conducting research as to why Hingham’s educational performance is comparable to Newton’s even though Newton spends 48% more per student. I believe I will be able to complete it on or before the end of September and release it on or before the end of October.
My theses that will be underlying my research:
1. Even after adjusting for differences in SPED/ELL/Low Income student mix, I believe that Newton’s per capita general fund spending per student is still 20% or more than what Hingham spends while achieving a comparable result to what Newton gets
2. Newton has more teachers per student than Hingham
3. Newton has a more generous benefit package than Hingham
4. Newton has higher average cash compensation than Hingham
5. Hingham is one of 24 school districts in Massachusetts that achieve comparable or better results than Newton yet do it for less
6. If I want to do more head-to-head comparisons, I have two dozen communities to compare Newton against.
7. Of the 24 comparison communities, two of them are in Newton’s peer group as evaluated by the Massachusetts DESE and
Does anyone want to contradict me? Does any0ne feel lucky?
@Jerry – exactly!! Or how about a sign “Pretend your mom is going to see how you left this bathroom.” You could even try different signs in different bathrooms to see what works best. Also in the book Nudge (I think that was where I read about it) they had tremendous results in bar men’s rooms in Finland when they glued a fake fly to the bottom of a urinal; apparently men like to have something to aim at.
Wow. Nice column, Jared. Everybody should take a deep breath and re-read it.
Jared rightly points out that some student behavior has room for improvement *and* that the school needs to do a better job.
Asking for toilet paper, soap, and stalls that latch isn’t unreasonable or spoiled. I know some of the girls’ restrooms have misaligned latches, so it’s impossible to keep the stall doors closed.