Students at Bonham elementary school in Abilene, Texas, faced a serious problem last week when the school's toilets stopped working. Principal Diane Rose acted quickly and smartly. Instead of preparing mops and buckets, she called in the buses. Throughout the day, while the Abilene utilities crew repaired a water main, Bonham's 600 squirming students rode buses to "nearby schools that offered the use of their restrooms." After all was said and done, Rose seemed to count the day a success, and she told reporters, "It was just like a little field trip." But should principals in schools without proper plumbing-where students can't learn arithmetic because they're too worried about overflowing toilets and contaminated drinking fountains-be so nonchalant? Gadfly left several messages on Jonathan Kozol's machine; he hasn't returned our calls. But we already picture his next book: Injustice Overflows Like an Abilene Toilet.
"School improvises when toilets go out," Associated Press, April 10, 2006
