Private bathrooms in the ivory tower for L.A. school officials

Jul 1, 2002

The Los Angeles Unified School District is moving its headquarters to a 29-story office building in downtown Los Angeles – but not before the district’s seven board members and superintendent each get their own private bathrooms next to their offices on the 24th floor.

This is particularly outrageous in a district whose schools often have one bathroom for several hundred students – in some cases, for 500 students. L.A. Unified school bathrooms are too often out of order, dirty, or even lacking toilet paper or soap.

The cost of the private bathrooms, district officials say, is not more than $100,000.

Maybe. But this school board has voted to spend at least 180 million dollars on its new headquarters, private bathrooms and all – even while declaring it is running a 440-million-dollar deficit and has to cut basic services, teachers and classes.

If this what they learned about being public servants, they need to go back to school!