Walking through the PHS campus or Piedmont Park means passing by pile after pile of leftover lunch trays, plastic wrappers, Icee cups and utensils. Once spotless pathways and common spaces quickly become coated in food scraps, sauce packets and crumbs after nearly every meal period at school. It seems this careless disregard for our campus and surroundings will not cease, as many Piedmont students continue to mistreat them on a daily basis.
Despite the addition of new trash, recycling, and compost bins in recent years -both on school grounds and extending into the park- students consistently ignore the convenient alternatives, simply dropping their garbage on the ground. The effort of taking the extra seconds to locate a nearby trash bin appears to be too much of a chore for them, leading to litter-covered spaces after every brunch and lunch.
These blatant acts of disrespect don’t just stop at litter though–they extend into the classroom. Oftentimes they’re small, and otherwise unnoticeable, like the many holes drilled into desks via pen or pencil, or the occasional signature carved into their surfaces. The discreteness of these actions, however, does not make them any less ill-mannered. I’ve sat in several chairs covered in scrapes, bent, and punctured, many missing sizable chunks of plastic. Numerous textbooks contain not only scribbles but rips and stains. While I deeply understand that absent-minded vandalism isn’t unique to Piedmont, that doesn’t by any means dismiss it.
Over the past several years, we’ve seen just how far students are willing to go to mistreat their campus. During the 2023-24 school year, the bathrooms were likely the spaces most noticeably hit. Soap dispensers torn off of the wall and shoved in toilets, toilet paper wad-coated ceilings, and doors completely knocked out of their hinges are just a few of the many vile, and frankly unacceptable instances that occurred. This destructive behavior drew on for months, forcing school administration to issue proactive measures, such as propping open doors and implementing the use of hall passes and sign out sheets in classes.
Acts like what occurred in the boys restroom last year are harmful to everyone involved. Firstly, they demand immense time and resources from the school and its staff. We must recognize all of the hard work and efforts that the custodial and maintenance staff put into their jobs each day, efforts that should not be squandered by student inconsideration.
Additionally, these actions hurt PHS students by painting us as ungrateful and, frankly, spoiled. The new STEAM building and theater building cost dozens of millions of dollars to build, providing us with state-of-the-art facilities often not available in schools. Yet, within just a few years of its opening, the STEAM building’s bathrooms became the primary target for the destruction that took place last year.
In short, if we want to discredit the stereotype that Piedmont students are not in fact ungrateful, the first step definitely doesn’t include stealing a roll of paper towels or pulling the leg off of a chair. We need a shift in mentality here at PHS. Students need to take a step back and realize that what may to them seem convenient, casual, and insignificant is to others a nuisance, a burden and rude. Each item you choose to mistreat, each bathroom you vandalize, and each piece of trash you mindlessly leave behind, another individual must clean up or repair. So next time, consider the consequences your actions have on others–think before you act.
