At Sun Valley High School in Aston, PA., Serious issues are occurring within the student body and actions by our administration. Recently, a group of students at our school vandalized the men's restroom. To our knowledge, these students were caught twisting sinks, taking off covers to hand dryers, and removing soap dispensers from the restroom walls. Another student was found putting a camera from their Photography class into a toilet in one of the restrooms. Finally, a very large concern at our school is vaping and smoking in our restrooms. The student body, as well as our administration, have acknowledged that these are very large issues, contribute poorly to our safe education environment. To look at the solution for all of these issues, we should look to the Sun Valley Code of Conduct in our Student Handbook. In our Student Handbook page 30, it lists that the student behavior of "Vandalism/graffiti/property destruction", and the disciplinary actions for this behavior as "
-Continuation of Level I and II responses
-Restitution of property or personal damages
-Alternative programs
-Removal from class
-Police involvement "

Level I and Level II disciplinary actions both state "
-Verbal reprimand
-Special assignment
-Teacher counseling, Guidance counseling, or Administrator Counseling
-Detention
-Work detail
-Timeout
-Change of clothing
-Assigned zeros or no credit in class work or test
-Confiscation of items – not to be returned
-Confiscation of items – returned only to parents or student at the end of the semester or school year
-Withdrawal of privileges to school events, bus
riding, extracurricular activities, etc.
-Continuation of Level I responses
-Behavior contact
-Parent conference
-In‐school suspension
-Out‐of‐school suspension
-Schedule modification
-Referral to outside agency
-Permanent revocation of bus privileges
-Removal from class (short term)
-Rehabilitative compositions
-Truancy notices sent home, etc.
-Revocation of parking privileges
-Revocation of technology use
-Removal from dance or prom
-Removal from extracurricular activity
-Removal from field trip"
Based on the information provided in these sections of our code of conduct, The Sun Valley administration should have don't one or many of the above actions to the students who did the actions that violated our code of conduct. This said the students who vandalized the restrooms at our school should have been charged with the number of damages the caused, as well as further action permitted in our handbook as necessary. Although, our school administration took a different course of action. They instead decided to punish the entirety of the male student body at our school. Currently, the men at our school have been restricted to using only one restroom at school. However, this action does not line up with our student code of conduct. Instead of punishing the students directly, they punished all of the male students. Some may say this isn't a huge deal, we just need to use one restroom and sign in and out. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. Due to our school closing and locking the restrooms for the men, there is a domino effect of issues. First of all, this causes many students to miss up to fifteen minutes of class time. This is the most important issue following our schools' collective punishment discipline choice. Due to our entire male population being concentrated to one restroom, during and around fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh periods it can take up to fifteen to twenty minutes to wait in line to get into the restroom. Also, in the one restroom that is currently unlocked for male students, there is often no soap in the dispenser, and it is very dirty from lack of cleaning the restroom. Currently, in the restroom that is available for use by male students, there are four washbowls, two toilets, and two urinals. However, this does not comply with the Pennsylvania code 59.34, which states, "d) Secondary. There shall be a minimum of one flush toilet for every 20 girls and one washbowl for every 40 girls. There shall be a minimum of one flush toilet, two urinals and one washbowl for every 40 boys." To comply with this code in the current situation, our school would need to only have forty male students. This, however, is not the case. Although the school administration may argue that the school building meets the toilet requirement, as the school building contains the correct amount of flush toilets, urinals, and washbowls. Although the school does indeed have these utilities, they are not available for student use.

Our student body is not happy with our school actions, which are not in line with their own Student Code of Conduct. They are collectively punishing students for the actions of few, not meeting PA state code, and wasting the class time of students, hurting the school's students in the long run. This is the second time our school has locked the restrooms and its time for a change. Recently, many students have emailed and contacted our school principal and administration but received no response in regards to the matter. The school has tried many times following the closing of the restrooms to collectively punish students, as well. Recently, they canceled a school-wide pep rally due to the actions of the football team who vandalized the locker room. Again, in this case, the school did not follow its Code of Conduct for students. They did not directly punish the students who vandalized the locker room, and instead punished the entire student body and team for the actions of a few players. Thankfully, the administration soon redacted their decision to punish the student body as a whole and reinstated the pep rally after many parents were outraged about the decision, and students even petitioned against the school. As a student body, we call on the School Board of the Penn-Delco School District to propose a new solution to the issue of vandalism at our school. Our administration should be following the student handbook guidelines for discipline listed in our Student Code Of Conduct while punishing students, and not beating to their drum and disciplining student groups as a whole, when their guidelines clearly state that individual students will be punished. We acknowledge that the actions of a few students are unacceptable, and these students should be disciplined. Their actions of vandalism are not justified, we just ask the administration to follow the guidelines written in the student code of Conduct while disciplining students.

Our student body asks you to sign our petition, in hopes our school board and administration can see the harm they are causing to our safe learning environment.

Sincerely,
The Sun Valley High School Student Body.