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McKallah Brimhall

Pace Gardner

Clam Chowder Clam Chowders

9 May 2022

Proposal for a Beautification Plan

Dear Administration,

This year of 2022 is the beginning of the end to the construction, at least, hopefully. This

year I am a senior at Brighton and have had the full experience of a school being constructed

and the old building being demolished. I just wanted to let you know how I just love the new

school. The students are treating it just as well as they were last year! As I start my great and

amazing day I get to the school and park in the driving range in the back. Sigh, it’s always so

lovely to see the litter of fast food bags and junk food on the stairs as I make my way in. Oh!

And I can’t forget just how amazing my calves get because the school gives us students some

daily exercise through the stairs. Every student has to get at least one million steps in a day. It’s

also great to know that I can’t really find a garbage can at least 20ft away and in view, it really

doesn’t make us want to litter or anything. I think the new cafeteria that came right in the middle

of the year is great too! Students line up in about six lines and wait their turn and just hope they

aren’t the hundredth person in line. They get their lunch trays and travel up a few flights of stairs

to get to their eating spot. Also I love how we have secret waiters! I mean we can leave our

lunch trays anywhere and most of the time by the next week it’s gone! Seriously, I haven’t even

a word about it.

Let me be serious here, some of the students don’t actually take the enforcement at the

school seriously. Last year's habits have come for this year and the students are trashing the

school. Even if you guys try to say something about it, what are the consequences? Because I

really haven’t seen any. This year has been so bad as kids have even been stealing soap

dispensers and mirrors from the bathrooms. There was a busted sink pipe in the bathrooms
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once and I think it’s because someone was messing around and kicked the pipes. We need to

do something to clean the school from the messy ketchup packets to fast food bags and lunch

trays left everywhere. We need to get these students, especially the freshman and sophmores

to have better habits. I have a plan that we can put to use for this very purpose.

My goal is to have an effective “Beautification Plan.” I hope through this plan we will help

students to have better cleaning habits and better mental health through a clean and

respectable environment. First, we need to tell the students the problem and remind them. We

need the students to remember to clean up after themselves and be respectable students.

Secondly, we need consequences. Now the consequences the administrators choose all on

their own probably won’t work because no one has been enforcing them up till now. I

interviewed Daniel Emrazian, a teacher at Brighton High school, and Mike Biesel, a hall monitor

at Brighton High school, both stated that the students weren’t held accountable for the bad

behaviors. We need the students to decide what consequences they will have for littering.

Thirdly, the school grounds need easier access for students to clean up their messes. More

garbage cans need to be put in place and tray stations on each floor for students to return their

lunch trays to. All of these are to better the environment and have the students develop titivating

habits.

Students need to be informed of the situation. Now what’s happening now? Well I made

a survey, Cleanliness at Brighton, and had some students at Brighton fill it out. Many of the

responses were what I kind of expected, meaning that the school was more than moderately

dirty. Which is dirtier than it should be. The students who mainly need to be informed to clean up

after themselves are the freshman and sophmores because the older students are more

responsible. To inform them the administration and student government need to hold an

assembly every trimester. The second into the trimester should be when it is held. A

presentation or display in the auditorium or gym to make sure the students are disclosed to be

responsible.
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Consequences made by the student body are needed to be made. Students will listen

more and follow through when they decide their agreement. Students show more

insubordination towards the Admin now because they haven’t had repercussions for their

flippant actions. So, the students need to take a survey, made by the collaboration of the student

government and Admin, with maybe the consultations of teachers’ opinions, about what

ramifications they’ll have for littering and leaving out lunch trays and food. The students need to

be made aware of the survey at the beginning of the year around the second week into school.

Posters should also be hung in the hallways with the link or QR code to the survey.

Announcements are also included with the disclosing of the proceeds of the survey.

Primping up the school grounds should be easier than it is now. With more garbage

cans, which was highly suggested in the Cleanliness at Brighton survey. Also lunch tray racks

with wheels would be highly encouraged to have one on each floor during and after lunch for the

easier transport of the school lunch trays. A cheap 3-tier shelving unit with wheels on amazon

can be as low as $44 USD. With this much and with only three of them it would only cost around

$150 dollars. Garbage cans range from a number of dollars but a “Rubbermaid Commercial

Products Brute 20 Gal. Round Vented Trash Can with Lid” is $32 USD from Homedepot. So for

a budget of $500 USD we can buy three $44 dollar shelving units and 10 $32 garbage cans.

The garbage cans should be placed around the building and the outside part of campus.

The school should implement reinforcement of reminders and consequences for littering

while also making it easier for the students to clean up. The environment is affected by litter and

while the school right now may not be the worst there is, that is not the point. We need to stop

bad habits from progressing.

Works Cited

Daniel Emrazian and Michael Biesel. Personal Interview. 27 & 28 April 2022.

McKallah Brimhall. Littering at brighton. A survey about the cleanliness at Brighton High,

especially concerning the littering. Cottonwood Heights, UT, Brighton High School, April

2022. Unpublished Survey.