Schools to Test Single-User Bathrooms, Heat Sensors

BY ALEXIS GUSTIN agustin@loudounnow.com

Loudoun County Public Schools will test out single-user bathrooms at two schools and new heat sensors to detect smoking, vaping, or multiple people in a bathroom.

Chief Operations Officer Kevin Lewis on March 14 presented the School Board with an update on school restroom safety and privacy updates that began in 2021.

Efforts to provide more bathroom privacy began in November 2021 after the Virginia Department of Education passed model policies for the treatment of transgender students, prompting the passage of a division policy allowing transgender and gender expansive students access to bathrooms or locker rooms of the gender students identified as.

Lewis said the focus now is on safety for students and staff especially around inappropriate activities including smoking and vaping, vandalism, conflicts between students, conflicts between students and teachers, and meeting the requirements of the division’s transgender student policy.

Lewis said the division plans to create two restroom pilot programs—one based on the Loudoun Valley and Broad

Run high school design and creating single user bathroom systems in those two schools and the other based on the more modern design of nine other high schools with work initially to focus at Heritage, Dominion and Woodgrove.

At Loudoun Valley and Broad Run, he said, two staff single-user restrooms that are currently being used for staff and students will revert back to staff-only restrooms and three individual toilet rooms for students will be transformed from a storage room attached to the staff restrooms.

Sterling Students Recognized in C-SPAN Documentary Competition

Four students from Dominion High School were among the winners in C-SPAN’s 2023 StudentCam competition announced on March 15.

Eiman Sherzada, Sarah Tandon and Mariam Shaikh received an honorable mention prize for their documentary “The Foundation of Democracy: Saving Tomorrow,” about misinformation and fake news. Miya Livingston received an honorable mention for her documentary “Preconceived Notions: Access to Contraception in 2023.”

Nearly 3,000 students from 40 states, Washington, DC and Abu Dhabi competed, with more than 1,500 entries. The winning videos received cash awards ranging from $5,000 to $250.

At Heritage, Dominion and Woodgrove, he said, two staff-only single-user restrooms on the main floor and two on the lower level that were converted to student single-user bathrooms will now be used to create four private toilet rooms with shared sink access for staff and student use.

He said the division is also going to add technology to the pilot program that will detect vaping or smoking and has thermal technology so school administrators can

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