Bad marks for school restrooms.

• Position: Your Life

With the school year well under way, attention is turning from the traditional three "Rs" (reading, writing, and arithmetic) to the fourth "R"--school restrooms. A national survey of parents conducted on behalf of Kimberly-Clark Professional by Opinion Research Corporation identified a number of problems associated with the restrooms in their children's schools. In fact, the situation is so severe that close to 20% of middle- and high-school students admit to their parents that they avoid the school restroom due to dirty or unsafe conditions.

"The state of school restrooms in this country is a national disaster," accuses Tom Keating, coordinator of Project CLEAN (Citizens, Learners and Educators Against Neglect), dedicated to safe, sanitary school restrooms for all schoolchildten. "You have conditions that are so bad, kids are literally holding it in all day." Complaints include vandalism and graffiti, cited by 38% as the most-likely result of dirty, unstocked, or unsafe school restrooms, and students' health problems, cited by 22%.

"It can be difficult to draw a direct link between cleaner bathrooms and academic achievement," he admits. "Intuitively, however, we know that students will pay closer attention in class if they're not worried about `holding it in' until school is over. And, when school restrooms are clean, safe, and well-stocked, the overall school is perceived by students as cleaner and more appealing."

Keating points out that, in some school bathrooms, it is easier to find the toilet paper hanging from the ceiling than in the stalls. In others...