Toilet Shortage Takes Back Seat at Schools in San Diego County

The potty line.

If the next crisis in public education in rapidly growing North County is the lack of toilets, remember you read it here first. If not, this is being told to you by two guys from Cleveland.

The state Department of Education says that, in elementary schools, there must be one toilet for every 30 boys and one for every 25 girls.

In junior and senior high schools, it’s one for every 40 boys, one for every 35 girls.

That’s great, except that the rule has no teeth. Plus there is sometimes jiggering with numbers to show that a school is within the state rules: counting faculty toilets, for example.

Add lots of growth, and you’ve got the potential for lots of kids hopping from foot to foot because there is no water closet available.

“Aside from asbestos, the No. 1 call I get is on toilet problems,” state schools architect Mike Chambers told The Times’ Tom Gorman.

Take Del Dios Middle School in Escondido: it’s got one toilet for every 60 boys, and one for every 37.5 girls.

That’s close to the state standard for girls but way over for boys. Yes, but when you consider that some toilets are off-limits to certain grade levels, it gets worse.

At lunchtime, 600 kids are corralled into an area of the campus with only one toilet per gender. Girls report lines 6, 8 or 10 deep.

“There are 300 girls for just one toilet,” says Andrea Russo, 13, an eighth-grader. “It’s ridiculous.”

The year-old Bernardo Heights Middle School is 14 toilets shy of state requirements. Enrollment is growing.

“We have no enforcement authority to say you’ve got to have another potty in there,” said Pat Campbell, chief structural engineer for the Office of the State Architect.

Doug Langdon, spokesman for the County Office of Education, says that “many, if not most” of the schools in the county have added temporary classrooms in the past two years but that few have added more toilets:

“The reason for that is: Classroom space is a good deal more urgent than constructing new restroom facilities.”

Then again, urgency is a matter of definition, I suppose.

A Ruff Business

Danger: High-voltage electorate.

* Proof that politics is a dog-eat-dog business.

The perennial question: Why do some campaigns (and candidates) win and others lose?

Here’s a startling suggestion: Some campaigns (and candidates) win because they work harder.

Take San Diego Councilman Bob Filner, who gathered 70.3% of the vote last week (albeit in a poor turnout).

When Filner stumped door-to-door, he was equipped with a detailed profile of each household, prepared by his staff: the likes and dislikes of the voters therein, supporters, detractors, on-the-fence, key issues, etc.

All compiled in acronyms. A reporter asked him about DOG.

“That’s no acronym,” Filner shot back. “That tells me if the house has a dog.”

Explanation: Filner was bitten earlier in the campaign. The result of his dogged pursuit of votes.

* Do you still wonder if it annoys people to be shifted from one council district to another?

All seven precincts in Rolando and Oak Park that had only recently been shifted into the 4th District voted for challenger George Stevens against Councilman Wes Pratt.

Six of the seven precincts favored Stevens by margins higher than his 52.2% districtwide. An Oak Park precinct gave him 71.9%.

One more note: Rolando and Oak Park are predominantly white. Both Stevens and Pratt are black but made sure to send their white volunteers door-to-door in those areas.

Swinging Into Action

Now or never.

* Bigger is better.

The popularity of Big Bertha, the new extra-big driver by the Callaway Golf Co. of Carlsbad, has spurred imitators.

Stand by for the Whale from Wilson and the Widebody from Mizuno.

* A decision is close on a new general manager for the San Diego Convention Center to replace the ousted Tom Liegler.

* San Diego bumper sticker: “I May Be Lost But I’m Making Great Time.”