Students At Pa. School Must Ask For Toilet paper

An eastern Pennsylvania high school says vandalism forced it to create a policy in which toilet paper has been taken out of the boys' bathrooms.

Boys at Mahanoy Area High School now must go to the school office to request toilet paper and sign it out. Principal Thomas Smith says that's helped solve a major problem of bathroom vandalism that's been going on for two years.

"We've had serious destruction to our bathrooms for the past two years," Smith said. "We have a case pending with the police where a bathroom down by our gymnasium was absolutely destroyed. I'm sure Mr. (Robert) Pastucha (district facilities director) could tell you the times that our toilets have been jammed with toilet paper and other papers. And after we took the toilet tissue out of there, people were throwing books. It was our way to try to curb the destruction in the bathrooms."

Smith says boys must sign out the toilet paper and then sign it back in. But the Republican-Herald reports some parents are protesting the policy.

Parent Karen Yedsena says some students are too embarrassed to go to the office to get toilet paper and are going home sick instead. School officials say they aren't aware of any such problems.