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It lurks in every student bathroom at FHS. Its appearance is quite mild-mannered, but secretly it’s spreading diseases to all corners of FHS, infecting students and staff. Is it the Bubonic plague? No. Hanta virus? Not quite.
Hand dryers.
Of course, this spread of colds, the flu and other viruses aren’t solely caused by these innocent-looking public appliances. There is an accomplice to this dirty little crime: the tardy policy.
Hand dryers may be known for good sanitation in public rest rooms, but they aren’t very effective if people don’t use them. With an average drying time of more than a minute, the hand dryers take up more than a fifth of the passing time between classes. In combination with the new tardy policy, students are less likely to wash their hands after certain daily rituals.
Along with discouragement of good hygiene by the hand dryers, students are coming to school sick because of the attendance incentive. We’re not saying to do away with the attendance incentive, but students who are sick should stay home and get better before they contribute to this wild brush fire of viruses.
Hand dryers are well-intentioned, but they aren’t any good if they aren’t put to use. There are a couple of solutions that can be enacted to help this viral problem:
• First, everyone should wash their hands after visiting the fine public facilities known as school restrooms.
• Second, either up the wattage of the tortoise hand dryers or put paper towels back in the bathrooms. Of course, cost is a factor to this institutional problem, but if people complain about higher taxes or frivolous spending, tell them this is cutting doctor bills.
There are small things that can be done to make the FHS student body and staff happy. Fixing this hand drying situation, altering the tardy policy and, hey, while we’re at it, maybe putting doors in the boys’ bathroom stalls and locks that work in the girls’ bathroom would be nice. Such little things that would make FHS a better place. |
