Berkeley County school leaders are looking into measures aimed at keeping trouble out of school bathrooms

BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD)—The Berkeley County School District is discussing ways to ensure students are safe and making good choices while in school restrooms.

Katie Tanner, the district’s chief communications officer, said bathrooms have been challenging when it comes to school supervision despite the child’s age.

“We have to balance the privacy of the students along with supervision,” she said. “For our younger students, that can go from playing with water. As kids get older, they make some other choices in the restroom, and so that’s always been something that’s on our administrator’s mind, which is how they balance privacy in the restrooms with supervision in the restrooms.”

Administrators at Goose Creek High School recently discussed the possibility of installing gated barriers for restroom entrances.

“And these would’ve been utilized during times where students really should not be in the restrooms in certain designated areas. Maybe there was no supervision in that area depending on the schedule or class change,” said Tanner. “Also, our school facilities are rented, so there are areas of schools, especially our really large high schools, you’re only renting certain areas or restrooms, so the barriers would have allowed us to kind of cordon off those areas that were not being used.”

For now, school and district officials have decided to wait before moving forward with the plan.

“They are going to pause on that. Really take some time to consider some other options until they can figure out the opening of them, the closing of them, and really how that would be administered in a large setting,” Tanner said.

Trouble in school bathrooms is not uncommon, unfortunately. Students smoking, doing drugs, or causing damage to the restrooms has been an issue for years.

“In the restroom, whether it’s playing with water or making other weak choices in the restroom, we wanna make sure that our students have privacy, but that we also want to provide that supervision so that the choices that are being made are positive and making sure that we’re moving our kids forward.”

The district does not have a timeframe in mind as far as when they plan to implement additional measures to help deal with this issue.