YARMOUTH, N.S. — Concerns raised about washroom privacy in the Yarmouth Elementary School are being addressed, Nova Scotia’s education minister said during a recent open house at the new facility.
Four toilets side-by-side in the pre-primary portion of the school, with no dividers between them, generated considerable discussion on social media.
“When I was a kid we didn’t have synchronized (toilet) teams, but our school was poor and couldn’t afford the facilities, we just had normal bathrooms with stalls,” one observer noted on Twitter. “Anyway all kidding aside what the hell is going on in Yarmouth.”
Education Minister Zach Churchill said the province will respond to concerns about the lack of privacy.
“This is the industry standard,” Churchill said, referring to how the pre-primary bathrooms were designed, “but we’ve heard from concerned parents about the privacy level, so we’ve had the construction folks in here and they are designing partitions.”
The installation was expected to take place within days of Monday’s open house.
“We don’t want anyone to be uncomfortable accessing pre-primary,” Churchill said. “This is a really helpful, important program for kids, so we’re going to make sure they’re happy with everything, including the washroom space.”
Bathrooms in the main part of the school are co-ed, with stalls that offer floor-to-ceiling privacy. There is a common sink area. While providing enhanced privacy to students, Churchill said, the bathroom design also gives “more room for supervision to ensure the space is safe.”
Meanwhile, the school’s playground remains a “work in progress,” said Richard Gosling, chair of the school advisory council, describing the playground as a “multi-phase” project that will require fundraising.
Gosling didn’t have a time-frame for its development, saying the property had only been turned over to the Tri-County Regional Centre for Education at the end of August.
Cobequid Consulting has been engaged to work on the playground project.
“Playgrounds (and) play spaces aren’t part of the new builds,” Gosling said. “Cobequid was selected in July. They’ve got to come down and see what they can do.”
The idea is to have a “natural play space,” he said, although they also hope to bring a couple of swing sets from the former Central school.
