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Students have accepted that school bathrooms are always going to be gross. But they don’t have to be: a student at a public school in Massachusetts got their school’s bathrooms repaired in 3 weeks.
They gathered evidence. The student took inventory of what was actually broken: a shattered mirror, locks on stall doors that didn’t work. “The bathrooms are gross” is easy to ignore. “The mirror is shattered and three of four stalls don’t lock” combined with photographic evidence is something your school needs to address.
They learned how fixes actually happen. They spoke with teachers and the school custodians to find out how repairs get funded and what could realistically change. Custodians know the system better than anyone, but they’re rarely asked for input.
They asked the principal, in writing. With evidence gathered and support from staff, the student emailed the principal with a template similar to this:
- To
- [your principal's email]
- Subject
- Broken locks and a shattered mirror in the [location] bathroom
Hi Mr./Ms./Dr. [Principal’s last name],
I wanted to flag some problems in the [location] bathroom that are worth fixing: the mirror is shattered, and [number] of the stall door locks don’t work. I’ve spoken with [custodian’s name] and [teacher’s name] about what it would take to repair them, and it sounds like [what you learned, e.g. a work order plus a small amount from the facilities budget].
Would you be open to putting in a work order for these? I’m happy to meet in person to walk you through what I found.
Thanks for considering this!
With hope and gratitude,
[Your name]
They followed up. The student had to follow up several times before they got an answer.
Repairs done! Less than a month later, the mirror and the stall locks were fixed.