MEET THE BAUMANN SCHOOL BUS DRIVERS
SCHOOLS
Blue Ribbon School of Excellence in Danger of Burning Down?
By Jeff Boyd
I despise using the bathrooms in this school. The toilets are rarely flushed, there is seldom soap or towels to dry hands, and, if the faucets work, they seem to be hooked directly up to a cold water source. If I could, I would drive' home every time "nature called" and use a decent bathroom. But that is merely a part of the reason for my not wanting to use the bathrooms here. The main reason is that students use them for cigarette breaks.
Bathrooms are not smoking lounges, but many cannot respect their peers or comprehend that simple truth. I am new ,in this school, so I am unsure of the history of this plague and the attempts to correct it, but apparently they have failed miserably. The stench of doused cigarettes, drowned in stale urine, concentrated in unventilated, confined, restricting bathrooms, is enough to make anyone vomit. I am literally sick of putting up with the habits of inconsiderate people.
One may wonder what all this has to do with the title of this editorial. The problem with students smoking in the bathrooms is that it directly relates to the possibility of the school being lit aflame. Should one of our prized smokers become more careless and throw a halfsmoked butt in a wastebasket, there is a definite possibility that the school may become engulfed in flames.
Not only should the school administration be worried about this, but students should also be concerned. With all the smoke building up and becoming
more and more concentrated in those tiny rooms, one greatly increases one's chances of getting emphysema, asthma, cancer or heart disease.
In addition, the local fire department, police department, EVAC, and paramedics should all be actively involved. If and when the school catches on fire, the fire department will have to put the fire out, the police will have to investigate and find the culprit, and the paramedics as well as EVAC will have to treat bum victims.
The school's insurance company should also be more involved. Should any one student become ill or injured as a direct result of this ongoing problem, the school will be held liable. The school most likely pays a great deal of money to its insurance company in hopes that it will not have to recover any of that money to compensate for an injury or other difficulty. If and when the school catches fire, the insurance company will have to pay for a large part of the damages. Tax payers, you and everyone you know, will have to pay the rest.
The Fox Lane mission statement clearly says that "...our schools foster the development of positive interpersonal relationships and self esteem within a safe and secure environment." I wonder, how "safe and secure" this school is if we are risking our lives with death by fire every day?
On the other hand, maybe we can all look on the bright side. All those fire drills we've had to practice will finally pay off.