The Hike to Hydration
Students at CK are dehydrated — and only willing to use two water fountains
The water fountain that students actually use
March 17 2018
Students at Central Kitsap High School will all know about the water fountain. The only good one (besides the one in the far off land of the auto shop) is by the gym, which is not a very accessible location. Senior Kaitlyn Johnson says she feels guilty about how much class time she missed in her trek to refill her bottle, but that doesn’t mean she’s willing to go to the other fountains.
“I don’t want to come up and get some water from the ‘May Contain Asbestos’ water fountain in the cafeteria.” she says. “It doesn’t matter where I am in the school, I’ll always go to those two… I don’t feel greatly [sic] about the ones upstairs that look like urinals.”
These “urinal” fountains can be found all over the school
Junior Jason Clendennen feels the reason people don’t use these “urinal” fountains is because “not all of them have a refrigeration unit attached to them,” which he claims would improve the fountains and their usage.
People should drink 80 ounces of water a day, and to do that in school you would need to bring and refill a water bottle.
“The struggle to fill up a water bottle from the water fountains is definitely an issue,” says Clendennen, “Since the water fountains only have standard nozzle for direct drinking.”
A great solution to this problem is fountains with bottle filling stations like they have at the YMCA. Johnson says this would help encourage students to refill their bottles and stay on top of their hydration. Vice Principal Matt Clouser says that we will get them in the new school, which is great, if a little late. Even Central Kitsap Middle School has one already!
There is a good reason for the water fountains being the way they are now. It’s an old building with old plumbing and old fountains, and the “good” fountains are the newer ones. Clouser says he didn’t know that students had a problem with the fountains in the first place, and points out that if no one tells admin, they won’t know about it to fix it. But that doesn’t necessarily excuse the fact that students at our school are dehydrated, as are most students, and that this dehydration is detrimental to student’s cognitive performance.
Thankfully, the new school will have better fountains, but for now there’s not a lot we can do except deal with the hike to hydration.