Main doors to toilet blocks in schools removed

Lester Queripel asked several written questions of the committee after one of its members said that toilet doors were being removed at St Sampson’s High School due to concerns about students vaping.

‘I was extremely shocked and thoroughly appalled,’ he wrote.

In its lengthy answers, ESC assured him that this did not refer to the doors of cubicles, but to the main access doors to the blocks.

It also said that the core issue driving the change was ‘to bring about improvements in the behaviours of some students, and to improve safeguarding for all students on the site’.

‘It should also be noted that it is now common practice, when designing new schools and other buildings associated with the delivery of education, to create toilet block spaces that are not separated from communal corridors by a door.’

The toilet facilities at Les Beaucamps were designed this way when the school was built more than 10 years ago, said ESC.

Doors to the blocks at La Mare de Carteret High and the Grammar School have also been removed, but where there was a direct line of sight from the corridor into the toilet areas, a screen or partition was installed. This was not needed at St Sampson’s since there was no line of sight issue.

Although the decision to take this action was not directly connected to vaping, but was done ‘to reduce the number of areas on school sites where students can congregate away from the watchful eye of the staff responsible for their supervision’. ESC said that as a result there had been a decrease in vaping, which was already banned on all school sites.

Deputy Queripel’s concerns led to him asking ESC how they thought students how they would react to having toilet doors removed, and if they would be asking for all doors to public toilets to be removed.

ESC reiterated that it was not the individual doors to cubicles that had been taken away.

‘Were ESC members students at school today, they would respond as the vast majority of students have, which is simply to note the change at the entrance to the toilet blocks, including the “line of sight” privacy screens that have been provided where needed.’

It would not be asking for doors to public toilets to be removed.

Deputy Queripel said he was pleased with the answers and he had sent them out of concern for student privacy following a report that quoted an ESC member talking about the doors being removed.

‘In the response to my questions from ESC, they said they were disappointed the media article didn’t make it clear which doors had actually been removed, and that had caused unnecessary confusion and concern,’ he

said.

Having been assured that it was not cubicle doors being remove he was ‘absolutely delighted to hear that’.

‘My concerns have been allayed and I will not be pursuing the matter any further.’