Vandalism has been a problem at Oak Park High School since the end of the 2018-19 school year. The defacing was especially noticeable during the 2019 summer school session. This has lead to new bathroom pass policies for the 2019-20 school year.

Randy McLelland, a counselor at Oak Park High School and the counselor for summer school, explained the actions staff had to take over the summer in response to the surge of vulgar vandalism in the student bathrooms.

“We just shut the bathrooms down with the exception of the 10 minute break, and we posted campus supervisors or myself there to watch who’s coming and going to try and deter them, and then require everyone to come to the office to sign in to use the bathroom, which is a pain,” McLelland said.

According to Assistant Principal Jason Meskis, the vandalism really boomed during the last half of the summer school session.

“I did the first 3 weeks of summer school, and it wasn’t really happening during that time, but in the second three weeks. When it was happening we decided to have kids use the restrooms in the office, and so we knew who was in the restrooms,” Meskis said. “There’s not that many kids in summer school so it worked and the kids didn’t have an opportunity to do that anymore.”

During the school year, new sign-out sheets have been put into every classroom to keep track of students exiting and returning class. AP and honors biology teacher, Winnie Litten, explained that the safety of her students is her first priority. Knowing where the students are incase of emergency is one of the many reasons why she supports and uses the new sign-out sheets. Litten explained why the sheets could help when coming to the vandalism problem.

“There are some students who make poor choices, as in destroying campus property or harassing other students and we can narrow down the suspects based on our classroom logs,” Litten wrote to the Talon.

According to McLelland, the vandalism took place mainly in the women’s restroom.

“The most prominent piece on the outside door was ‘the Pee Pee Gang’ that was scrawled very large and very prominently on the front door and then once you went into the stall, you could see new things being added on a regular basis,” McLelland said.

As outlined in California State Education Code 48900 and 48915 students may be subject to suspension if they cause or attempt to cause damage to school property or private property.

“It’s obnoxious for everybody, for the students, for the office staff, everybody’s queued up in the office just to ask to go to the bathroom. So I feel like the whole funny ‘haha’ aspect of the graffiti kind of grew out of control and became an inconvenience for everybody,” McLelland said.

Although the procedures were difficult for all involved, the vandalism did subside.

“It’s nice to be able to trust the kids to act responsibly and not have to go through all that,” McLelland said. “But, that was the point, a chance to just restrict access and find the people who were putting graffiti in, just make it harder for them to do it.”