"Answer Sheet" Has No Answer

Valerie Strauss: You Suggest an Answer!

In today’s Post, Valerie Strauss, writer of a blog called “The Answer Sheet” criticizes Montgomery Blair high administration for closing the bathrooms in response to student vandalism. Fine, Valerie. What do you suggest?

One reader suggested getting kids (chosen at random, I suppose) to work on Saturdays to fix the bathrooms – thereby giving all kids a stake in keeping them in good order. Excuse me, sir. What planet are you on? What you suggest is illegal. Can you imagine the parental hue and cry? “MY CHILD is not the culprit.” “MY CHILD should not be punished for someone else’s crimes.” Please.

Bathroom vandalism is not new. My father, who was born in 1918, liked to tell about the time he and his friends lifted the heavy log school outhouse off its base and sent it tumbling down the hill. He and his friends fled to the woods. Bathroom vandalism is hardly new.

Here’s a solution: Valerie and her buddies could volunteer to monitor the school bathrooms.