A California school district said this week that they had so many lockdowns last year that it seemed like the perfect time to spend $36,000 on portable plastic toilets for the classrooms.
"Last year, we had 14 lockdowns in the Kern High School District, and many of them lasted maybe five or 10 minutes," Kern High School District spokesperson John Teves told KBAK. "The longest that I saw was two hours."
The so-called lockdown kits sold by SOS Survival Products include a 5-gallon bucket with a toilet seat lid, toilet paper, wet wipes, waste bags, duct tape, latex gloves, a tarp and a bag of kitty litter.
"This year, as a district, we bought it district wide in order to get the most cost-effective rate on our cost," Teves explained. "We were able to buy these for about $20 each. We bought a total of 1,800, so it was a cost of about $36,000."
With an increasing number of bomb threats and guns in schools, Teves said that the district needed to be prepared.
"It would be regrettable, it would be traumatic if a child had to go to the bathroom in the classroom during a lockdown," he pointed out. "On the other hand, some of the shootings, some of the mass slayings of children at school are such that we can't be too careful."