Over the summer, construction was completed on renovations of the restrooms in the New Pit and Old Pit, including a complete renovation of the all-gender, single-use bathrooms in both pits.
In the New Pit, the boys’ restroom is now located at the top of the stairs on the right side, and the girls’ restrooms are in the hallways near the stairs, Casey Wright, Associate Principal for Operations and Student Experiences, said. In the Old Pit, the boys and girls restrooms now stretch to both hallways, Wright said.
“You can get in and out in terms of washing your hands and then getting to class,” Wright said. “The renovations reduce the amount of time in passing, and then hopefully reduce the time that students have to leave class for. We understand that there are bathroom passes, but students should have the ability to utilize the new restrooms in between classes.”
District 225 has implemented a 10-year Master Facility Plan, to maintain, upgrade, and modernize district facilities to improve student health and safety, while supporting educational programming, J.L. Henriot, Building and Grounds Manager said. The bathroom renovations are the first complete renovation since the school opened in 1962, Henriot said. The bathrooms were gutted from the floor drains all the way to the exhaust fans on the ceilings, Henriot explained. The new bathrooms occupy the same amount of space, but the new layouts are more efficient, Henriot added.
“The District’s 10-year roadmap is really neat because we get to try some things, learn as we go, and then apply them to the next portion of the Master Facility Plan,” Henriot said.
Additionally, two new rooms for mothers to use to pump milk have been added near the Social Studies Department, Wright said. According to workers’ rights laws, all facilities are required to have a room for mothers. South has two smaller mother’s rooms in the New Pit, but previously had none in the Old Pit, Wright said.
“We wanted to make sure we had something and we happened to have a big space that’s good access,” Wright said. “It’s a good way to be inclusive, in terms of all of our staff and making sure that we can better meet their needs.”
The renovations also included covering up existing tiles with bricks or other materials, but now the bathrooms contain new tiles, compared to the white speckled tile from the original construction of the school, Wright said. The old tiles were similar to a mosaic and not easy to clean, Javier Benitez, Assistant Manager for the second shift units and grounds, said.
“All the tiles being new is a matter of just keeping it up instead of trying to clean something that has been getting a lot of dust from years and years,” Benitez said. “It’s like a new start.”
