High school should be a place where teens feel comfortable, and to a certain extent, free to make their own decisions. At Freemont High School (FHS), Jonathan Kozol interviewed the students’ attendance, and all of them said this school was none of the things it is supposed to be. Though Maryville High School, a small town East Tennessee school, is extremely different than Freemont High School, an inner city school in Los Angeles, at first glance, the two actually have a few things in common. When looking at what Jonathan Kozol’s wrote in his article about FHS, a Los Angeles high school called, “Freemont High School”, written in 2005, three similarities arise: crowded lunches, unsanitary conditions, and freedom. At Freemont High School there are …show more content…
According to the students, the bathrooms were disgusting and not well stocked with toilet paper, soap, paper towel, etc. (707). Kozol also found out that a lot of the bathrooms on Freemont’s campus were out of order or closed off for some reason. In Freemont High School there are “15 fewer bathrooms than the law requires” (707). Because of this, students are always standing in long lines waiting to use the restroom. The school itself is also unkempt; graffiti covers the walls, and there is no air conditioning. Maryville High School also has some issues with the cleanliness of the school. Similar to Freemont, Maryville’s bathrooms often do not have enough toilet paper and are quite nasty. The hallways and first floor of Maryville have many ants and cockroaches crawling around. This is very off putting to students, faculty, and visitors. Although Maryville does have air conditioning, it often stops working and makes the school uncomfortably hot. The unsanitary conditions in both Freemont and Maryville make for an unpleasant environment to teach and learn