I was told a story by a teacher who works in a transfer high school in the Bronx. However, before I tell you the story, you should know what a transfer school is. A transfer school is a school that accepts overaged and under credited students (at least 16 years of age) who struggle in other high schools. Moreover, these transfer schools take in students who previously dropped out, students who came out of incarceration, and students who move from one temporary shelter to another. In other words, these are "high needs" students. To help accumulate credits, the transfer schools are tri-semester, meaning they receive three credits for the year instead of two.
Teachers who work in transfer schools call it "heaven and hell". Its hell during the fall semester as the classes are crowded and quite a few students don't want to be there but are forced to by their probation officer, parent, or authorities. By the Spring semester most of the students have disappeared, especially the behaviorally challenged who disrupt the classroom. This time is know n as heaven as the teacher has small class sizes and students who wanted to graduate.
That brings me back to the Bronx transfer school which recently had a student assembly and elections for student body President. Three candidates were running, one boy and two girls. The girls campaigned for the usual things, a stronger student voice, more resources, a less punitive discipline policy, and student respect. The audience seemed only half interested and many were eying their cellphones or talking to the person next to them, Then it was time for the boy to speak. He started talking about the awful bathrooms. He called them "smelly and stinky" and lacked toilet paper, soap, and paper towels. He demanded air fresheners for the bathrooms. He explained when you take a "shit" and there's no toilet paper it helps to stink up the entire school The buzz from the crowd stopped as he was speaking and then went wild with yells and applause as he targeted the one issue that they all wanted to fix, the stinky and smelly bathrooms.
I guess he won the presidency of the school's student body as he pledged to clean up the corrupting stench of the bathrooms that causes the school to stink.
