Specifying Moen's vandal-resistant plumbing helps educational environments stand up to perpetual challenges. for case histories concerning university and public school system successes, see our Education Focus.

In Tom Keating's opinion, too many school restrooms are a disgrace. The Ph.D. and coordinator of Project CLEAN (Citizens, Learners and Educators Against Neglect) saw it with both his sone, who used the nurse's bathroom because there wer no doors on the stalls of his high school's toilets, and his daughter, who didn't have sanitary products or disposal receptacles in her middle school bathroom.

"For those students and many thousands of others, what you find is that students are starved for good, clean restrooms," Keating says. The problem, he adds, is that a small proportion of student vandalism and graffiti ruins the bathrooms for everyone else. And when the other students see that no one is interested in helping them solve the issue, they give up.

But it doesn't have to be this way. School administrators, facilities managers, students, and even building designers and engineers can all play a role in helping clean up school restrooms.

Having a functional and durable restroom is important not just for students' heal and their avility to concentrate. It's also a sensible financial decision to reduce maintenance and water costs. Engineers and architects can help school districts minimize these costs by specifying plumbing products that resist common types of vandalism.

If a student steals a faucet handle or an aerator, for instance, facilities managers have to keep ordering replacement parts, and maintenance staff must spend more time servicing the plumbing. Moen Commercial addresses these challenges by offering vandal-resistant features in its faucets, showerheads and flush valves.

MoenCommercial's faucet handles are the most obvious example. Rather than using a standard Phillips-head screw to attach the handles, Moen Commercial faucets use a star-shaped Torx®-head screw that requires a special tool to remove. The first line of defense is to not make it a standard tool.

Moen Commercial aerators, showerheads and flush valves employ similar strategies. Showerheads and flush valves utilize a simple set screw that keeps vandals from disassembling them with only a wrench. moen Commercial aerators can be removed only with a specific round, plastic tool that keys into the bottom of the aerator.

While it's important for engineers and designers to specify these vandal-resistant features, school restrooms can also benefit from Moen products' heavy-duty construction. Moen faucets must meet above-code requirements in drop tests, in which a weight is dropped onto the faucet to test impact resistance. Features such as all-metal construction and locking tabs on the faucet cartridge, which keep handles from over-torquing, ensure that Moen faucts maintain not only their functionality but also their appearance and intended state.

Even if you graduated years ago. you can still play a role in cleaning up school bathrooms. Make sure to include vandal-proof features in your plumbing specs to give your designs an extra line of defense against vandalism.