Taped into the entryway of the girls\u2019 bathroom on the second floor of the H Building is a sign that reads: \u201cPlease (I’m a) custodian begging all the student(s) to stop writing (on) the restroom\u2019s walls, it\u2019s not good to do that. Please stop it because custodial (staff would love for) all the student(s) to respect everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
This message, written by Berkeley High School custodian John Mensah, was posted because of a problem that every student at BHS is aware of \u2014 the bathrooms. Notoriously dirty and missing objects such as mirrors, paper towel dispensers, and even locks, BHS\u2019 bathrooms are infamous among students and staff alike. A survey conducted by Jacket found that 7 out of 14 sinks in the girls\u2019 bathrooms in the C and H Buildings were broken at the end of a school day.<\/p>\n
Towards the end of the school year, students may notice that appliances stay broken for longer and missing materials aren\u2019t replaced as quickly. According to the custodial staff, this occurs because the supplies needed to replenish and maintain the bathrooms often surpass the amount that was estimated at the beginning of the year, and once that happens it can be difficult to restock. Custodians must then contact administrators for new supplies, who will follow up with the appropriate contacts to procure the necessary items. \u201cSometimes (custodians) cannot do anything because (there are) no more supplies. We wait for the district to give us some supplies,\u201d Edwin Asis, BHS custodian, said.<\/p>\n
While this method can be effective for restocking bathrooms, it\u2019s very costly, often exceeding the funds allocated for supplies. For the 2025-26 school year, custodial supplies \u2014 such as product refills, appliance replacements\/repairs, and general cleaning supplies \u2014 made up 4.26 percent of Berkeley Unified School District\u2019s Annual Plan. Some custodians, seeing the large amount of money spent on refills firsthand, fear that it detracts from their wages. Their hope is that if less restocks were needed, their salaries might be higher.<\/p>\n
These supplies don\u2019t run out because they\u2019re being used at higher rates than was estimated \u2014 they run out because students waste them. It\u2019s not uncommon to walk into a bathroom and see floors covered with paper towels, and stalls with toilet paper rolls that have been unrolled onto the floor.<\/p>\n
Not every student contributes to these conditions, but it\u2019s frequent enough that many bathrooms are nearly unusable. Writing on the walls, leaving trash on the floor, and breaking the machines is a display of blatant disrespect for custodians and fellow students as well as disregard for the integrity of the bathrooms. No matter if they\u2019ve wasted supplies and dirtied a bathroom or not, all students are responsible for the state of shared spaces like these.<\/p>\n
The next time students enter a BHS bathroom, they should intentionally use the facilities respectfully. As members of the BHS community, we owe each other the amount of respect and thoughtfulness due, especially to the custodial staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taped into the entryway of the girls\u2019 bathroom on the second floor of the H Building is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-240339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}