Ponte Vedra Beach: Parents outraged at high school bathroom closures

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — On Feb. 28, the Nease High School Principal Lisa Kunze sent out a newsletter announcing that several male bathrooms would be closed due to recent vandalism.

In the newsletter, the principal said the bathrooms had been destroyed on a daily basis for the last month.

The destruction included urination on walls, clogged toilets, removed soap dispensers and spread soap, the principal said.

On Monday and Tuesday, male students only had access to three stalls.

Parents are now concerned for their children’s safety and hygiene, especially with uncertainty of coronavirus.

Parents are also questioning if the high school is legally allowed to close several bathrooms at once.

The restrooms were reopened Wednesday, and the spokesperson for the St. Johns County School District said the restrooms were only closed during class time and not during class changes.

Nease High School has close to 3,000 students, and at least 1,000 of them are male. For the past couple of days, they’ve all had to use the same three bathroom stalls.

Staci Farrell’s son is a freshman at the school.

"I wasn’t pleased. It didn’t make sense to me, because to me it wasn’t solving the problem,” Farrell said.

"It’s just a big hassle. It takes time out of our day. We had a, I guess you can call it a protest. We all went at 1:30 p.m., and literally the line was there for about 45 minutes. We missed one of our classes and our lunch,” Dakota Davis. Davis, a senior at Nease High School, said.

Currently, state requirements that say, “All toilet rooms shall be available for occupant use during the hours of operation.”

The School District spokeswoman told Action News Jax via-email:

“It is never our intent to restrict a student’s ability to use a restroom. While the SREF requirements [below] are correct with regard to being available at all times, there are times when it is necessary to close a restroom, e.g. for maintenance, vandalism, etc. The building code does specify minimum toilet requirements of 1 per 50, but this code is used to determine requirements for new construction, not necessarily applicable to existing.”

"It was obviously a problem, and causing the school a lot of money. So I understand why they were trying to solve the problem, but I think they need to find a better way,” Farrell said.

The schools says some of the vandals have been caught, but not all of them.

A student and alumna both told Action News Jax this is not the first time the school has closed the bathrooms.

Action News Jax is working to learn the circumstances around the previous incident.

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