By Dana Townsend
School is not the place you’d expect to find students spending their free time.
But approximately 40 Lisgar Collegiate students ranging from Grade 11 to OAC did just that, painting and redesigning the bathrooms last weekend in preparation for the school’s 160th anniversary.
Jackets and backpacks were piled on the smooth floors and young men and women crammed into newspaper-littered bathrooms. The smell of paint was strong in the air as students talked, trading gossip and painting tips.
Whether they were experienced in painting or not, they wielded paint brushes with equal aplomb — and occasionally took a swipe at each other.
In the second-floor girls’ bathroom, one of the four teams of students transformed dull grey walls to brilliant pink and purple, with stalls bearing yellow stars with the names of famous actresses. Inside the “Jennifer Grey” stall, descriptions and quotations from the movie Dirty Dancing adorn the vibrant walls.
Meredith Vanstone, an OAC student and one of the creators of the project, says the graffiti had been getting out of hand in the washrooms. “We were trying to think of solutions.”
Besides discouraging vandalism, the redecorating is also part of the school’s campaign to “spruce up” for its 160th anniversary, which it will celebrate in the next school year.
During a brainstorming session between principal Pat Irving and students, the idea to repaint the school’s bathrooms with “themes” was born. The school agreed to pay for supplies with vending machine profits and the students agreed to paint on the weekend.
For some of the Grade 11 and 12 students, they have the added bonus of being able to count these hours of painting toward the community service needed in order to graduate. But Vanstone says the biggest motivation for students was “the chance to do something that has a lasting impression.”
Paul Burke, is a Grade 12 student who already has his community hours, but got involved anyway, hoping this project will discourage defacement of the bathrooms.
“They were actually closing the bathrooms because of the graffiti,” says Burke, standing in a basement bathroom being repainted in brilliant rainbow colours and destined to be decorated with media articles, columns and comics. Burke says students had to go to another floor or even another building to find a functioning bathroom.
“And certainly the bathrooms were an ugly colour before,” says Kirstin McClelland, an OAC student who wanted to make a positive change to the school before graduating.
Grade 12 student Nela Barton chats as she cuts out pictures for a sports collage in the other basement bathroom. Barton says this project has been one of the great changes that has taken place since Irving arrived in January.
“The principal is amazing with it,” says Barton, adding that she has seen a spectacular turn-around in school morale since Irving came.
Principals, staff and students received an unexpected challenge when the school flooded on March 11.
“It’s literally gutted the middle of the building,” says Irving, although the bathrooms were not directly affected.
Despite the flurry of work to get the school back in shape for the returning students, Irving says they decided to go ahead with the bathroom-painting project since it would have been difficult for students to arrange another weekend to paint.
“In the middle of craziness, we do more craziness,” says Irving.
The students don’t seem to mind. In the upstairs boys’ bathroom, rock music plays as a group of students paint the walls psychedelic blue, green and orange, decorated with colourful mushrooms, a huge black and white pinwheel and abstract designs.
Dawson Hamilton, a Grade 11 student, discusses the painting with another student as he dabs paint on the bathroom door. He says he joined the project for the chance to do something fun for the school, help with his community hours, and eat free pizza of course.
“The goodwill is incredible,” says Irving. “I’m sure it will be very well received by their peers.”
Irving says the school has invited students to submit more proposals for a science timeline on the third floor and a city street-scape in the tunnel connecting the buildings. She says the students would paint the murals themselves, “as time and funds permit.”