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A stoush is erupting in Brisbane’s south-west over ageing bathroom infrastructure, with the state government placing responsibility on the schools to maintain infrastructure parents say is outdated and making their kids sick.
Graceville State School parent Nell McNaughton said the bathrooms had been in a bad state – and smell – since her children joined the school more than five years ago.
“It was probably two years ago when I thought, I think we need to do something about this because I could smell the bathrooms from 50 to 60 metres away,” McNaughton said.
The mum of three – who launched a parliamentary petition to replace the bathrooms entirely, and amassed almost 1400 signatures – said she spoke to other parents, and discovered many students claimed to purposely avoid going to the bathroom because of the stench and state of the amenities.
McNaughton said while her children stopped drinking enough water each day at school, other families had confided in her their children needed inpatient treatment to clear bowel obstructions caused from chronic constipation.
One parent, who asked to remain anonymous to protect her child’s identity, told this masthead her son had only used the urinals – refusing to use the toilets, which he said were “disgusting”– for 18 months.
“We’ve had to take him to the doctor recently because he started urinating all the time … and it turns out, after an X-ray, he is severely blocked up – he’s got dried faeces up under his rib cage,” the boy’s mother said.
She said her son had been lethargic, although not in pain, from the blockage, and had begun a course of medication to help his digestion return to normal.
In a response to the parliamentary petition, the state government washed its hands of the problem, saying the school had already been given an annual maintenance and minor works budget of at least $15,000, which the principal could use for “planned and unplanned maintenance tasks and smaller upgrade projects”.
“Their shoelaces tread in their urine, and they’ve got to slap through the urine to get to the toilets.”
Nell McNaughton
Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek suggested the school could use the funds to replace toilets, cisterns, door locks and taps.
“However, these decisions are at the discretion of school principals,” he said in the response.
Langbroek said a 2023 assessment of Graceville State School revealed multiple buildings and amenities were in poor condition, but said amenities at both schools were reported as operational.
In a P&C meeting from April this year, then principal Abi Hurdley estimated repairs could mount into the millions.
McNaughton said the school community was disappointed in the government’s response.
“It doesn’t seem like they really understand the gravity of it,” she said.
Patchwork updates to Graceville’s toilets and ageing plumbing in both the girls’ and boys’ bathrooms meant toilets did not flush properly and snapped pull-string flush mechanisms in the urinals left urine in the drains, according to McNaughton, which quickly crystallised in the pipes.
“You’ve just got all these reasons for nothing to flow away from the children, so there’s often urine on the floor, and their shoelaces tread in their urine, and they’ve got to slap through the urine to get to the toilets,” she said.
She said broken locks and large gaps under the doors in the boys’ bathroom blocks also deterred some students concerned about privacy.
McNaughton said at nearby Sherwood State School – where her children take swimming lessons – bathrooms also suffered maintenance issues.
“I went into the bathroom at Sherwood… and it was raining and there was water coming in through the roof, flooding down into the electrical light fitting, and then flowing down onto the floor,” she said.
“There were holes all over the roof – it looked like it was from the ’50s or something.”
Langbroek said neither school had been prioritised for state funding since 2015, and said the department was slowly whittling down a $441 million maintenance backlog plaguing Queensland’s state schools.
“The department is currently seeking to engage contractors to develop design documentation to refurbish or upgrade the amenities at both schools for when funding is available in future years,” the minister said.
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