Now the 600 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders must get an escort to the facilities, in a move that has reduced the amount of student-inflicted damage but angered some parents.

"I don't think it should be a privilege to go to the bathroom,'' said Heidi Wert, whose daughter is a seventh-grader at the South Ann Street school. "I think everybody has a right to go to the bathroom in a timely fashion, when they need to.'' District officials argue that students are not forbidden to visit the facilities. They simply have to get an escort.

"Students are not denied access to bathrooms,'' district spokeswoman Kelly Herr said.

School officials first began locking the doors to all eight bathrooms on April 27, two days after notifying students of the crackdown.

In the morning, the bathrooms are locked at the beginning of the 10-minute homeroom period, which begins at 7:45 a.m. The bathroom doors remain locked until the first of three lunch periods begins at 11:18 a.m. They are locked again when lunch ends at 1:18 p.m. but are reopened when the school day ends at 2:45.

The practice is scheduled to remain in effect through the end of the school year on June 7. School officials will re-evaluate the measure over the summer and decide whether to reinstitute it when school begins again in August.

For now, students who need to go to the bathroom during class time must sign out and go to the small-learning- community office on their floor. A facilitator will escort them to -- but not follow them into -- the bathroom and will unlock the door. After the students are finished, the facilitator will lock the door.

The measure is being taken because of ongoing problems with vandalism, Superintendent John Bonfield said. The damage has included broken fixtures and pipes, and bent doors on the stalls.

"They have had trouble with students misusing the facilities and damaging the facilities, and what they were trying to do was get control of the situation by having students go to the facilities with monitors on the outside, so they would know who would go in and out,'' Bonfield said.

"I know the principal has been frustrated by this issue.'' It is especially frustrating to officials because the School District of Lancaster spent $100,000 renovating most of the eight bathrooms at Hand last summer, and it is expected to spend an additional $50,000 to fix the remaining ones there this summer.

The renovation project was undertaken because the facilities were old and, in some cases, had been vandalized. The three-story school at 431 S. Ann St. is almost 80 years old, having been built in 1925, according to county records.

"When we looked around the entire district, those are the ones that were probably in the worst shape, for a number of reasons,'' said Buddy Colmery, who is the district's director of facilities.

The district installed new floors, ceiling lights, fixtures and partitions between stalls in the bathrooms.

The lockdown has been successful in preventing further vandalism, Herr said.

"In the past week and a half, there has been very minimal damage to the bathrooms,'' Herr said.

The students responsible for the vandalism have not been caught, and it is unclear how many are involved.

Wert, however, says all students are being punished because of the actions of just a few.

"Three weeks before the end of school we try to just shut down the bathrooms? Why wasn't something like an incentive program offered?'' she asked. "I just think, creatively, that wasn't the best move.''

She said that in some cases, students have had to wait as long as 20 minutes for an escort.

"My concerns are also the health risks involved and the embarrassment, especially for girls.''