Students at Kaimuki High took photos of bathrooms in disrepair as part of a national civics program. Special to The Advertiser

Three years ago, the school board adopted a policy that all schools should have safe and comfortable restrooms and that students, teachers and administrators should work collaboratively on cleanliness plans. And while some schools have made improvements, problems persist statewide.

School restrooms have always been sanctuaries for students, one of the few places on campus to hide from adults. Smoking, graffiti and other vandalism is part of the ritual, especially in high schools. Students know that it is often other students who are to blame for the poor conditions.

But the state's $600 million backlog of school repair and maintenance projects has left many school restrooms with structural problems that go beyond student misbehavior, from shabby floor tiles and rotted stall doors to nasty odor and unreliable sinks and toilets.

The state Department of Education is upgrading school restrooms as part of its ongoing school renovation campaign, with the oldest schools and the ones in the worst condition first in line for repairs. The state Legislature, with the support of Gov. Linda Lingle, also approved $100 million for school repair and maintenance next fiscal year.

In the most recent school inspections last fall, only five schools statewide received unacceptable sanitation ratings, which typically included problems with restrooms. But even at many schools where sanitation was described as acceptable, like Kaimuki, the inspections often found a lack of soap, paper towels and toilet paper.

At Kalihi-Waena Elementary School, one of the five schools with sanitation problems, the inspection documented backed-up urinals, leaking toilets, foul odor and animal droppings. At Aliamanu Elementary School, restroom tiles and floors were cracked and stall doors were missing or rotted. At Castle High School, some restrooms smelled and lacked toilet paper and paper towels.

"The bathrooms are pretty pathetic," said Jeanette Uyeda, Kalihi-Waena's principal, who is hopeful that renovation will start on her campus this year. "You know, our kids are so nice, they wouldn't say anything."

Other students have spoken up.

Bad restrooms have been a frequent complaint of the Hawai'i State Student Council, whose members have reached out to the state school board.

A DOE survey released last year, in which about two-thirds of schools responded, found that most elementary and middle schools reported having no problem following the school board's restroom policy. But more than half of the 28 high schools that responded were having problems, a finding backed up in interviews with DOE officials and school administrators, who said that smoking, sloppiness and vandalism are more common among older students.

Karen Knudsen, a school board member who has had concerns about restroom conditions for years, said she remembers how parents hung shower curtains in the restroom at her daughter's elementary school back in the 1980s because the stalls had no doors. "It's an issue we've been dealing with for years and years," she said. "We want to do something so that going to the bathroom at school is not a miserable experience."

Like many issues at the DOE, which oversees schools statewide, the restroom situation is complicated. Is it a relatively minor nuisance typical of aging public schools or the result of genuine mismanagement or neglect?

School custodians and crews from the state Department of Accounting and General Services handle routine maintenance of school restrooms. In the past, the DOE and the school board have questioned whether schools have enough money to maintain basic supplies and whether schools are properly managing their supplies.

Each year, school principals give their priority repair and construction projects to DOE officials, who then ask the Legislature for money. Since schools know that there is a backlog and understand that money from the Legislature is often tight, many needed projects, such as restroom repair, do not always make the cut.

"There is a backlog, so the schools have to make a choice," said Gilbert Chun of the DOE's operations and maintenance section.

Dennis Manalili, the principal at Kaimuki High School, said he has spoken to student leaders about how they can help keep the restrooms clean. He said restrooms are typically well-stocked and presentable before school and then can deteriorate during the day, partly because "some students are doing things they are not supposed to in there."

"What needs to happen is that students need to be part of the solution," Manalili said.

In April, The Bulldog, the school's student newspaper, published an opinion piece on restroom conditions along with pictures of stalls without doors, broken sinks and empty toilet-paper dispensers. In May, the paper asked four students how they would improve the school, and two of them, both girls, called for locks on bathroom stalls.

Several Kaimuki freshmen brought their complaints about restrooms to school administrators as part of Project Citizen, a national civics program that encourages students to identify issues and be forces for change.

The students agreed that students themselves need to take more responsibility. They even suggested that students report other students for smoking and that students on detention clean graffiti from restroom walls.

"Basically, just cleaning up after themselves," said Michael Matsuse-Panzo, a Kaimuki freshman.

But they also think that things might be different — very different — if teachers and school administrators had to use the same restrooms as students.

"It would be completely different," said Ayesha Shepherd, a freshman. "They would finally see what we have to deal with every day."