Plans for the installation of a unisex bathroom in Palmerton Area School District’s weight room and wrestling room have one school board member questioning its intent.

Earl Paules, board vice president, recently paid for a sign located along Delaware Avenue that reads “No Unisex Bathrooms In Our Schools Here In Palmerton.”

Palmerton’s weight room and wrestling room are located in the building under the home bleachers of its athletic stadium and the district has, for the past several months, vetted plans to construct separate boys and girls locker rooms with three individual showers in each. School district officials said the change from the current layout of one boys communal shower with six shower heads makes sense, particularly given the rise in popularity of girls wrestling programs.

“Right now the main concern is that kids are leaving the wrestling area, crossing the weightlifting area to go shower and then going back across to the wrestling room,” High School Principal Paula Husar said at a school board workshop last year.

“That is really one of the main things that needs addressed and why this project is being looked at.”

The handicapped accessible, unisex bathroom was added to the plans late, Paules said.

“Everyone thought this was just an overflow bathroom, what’s the big deal?” Paules said. “But I knew there was more to it. Then all of the sudden it comes out about if we have students who are transitioning, they can use that bathroom. We don’t need to have that bathroom in the plans. Certain board members went over our heads to get it in there.”

ALLOY5, the architectural firm charged with designing the renovated field house, first presented project plans at a school board workshop in November but conversation heated up in January when the unisex bathroom was made a prominent issue.

Pressed on the matter, Randy Galiotto of ALLOY5 said the bathroom was added so it could be used by certain athletes working out in the weight room.

“Not everyone who uses the weight room is part of a team that would need to go in the locker room, so you would still have the option for someone not part of a team to use that bathroom,” Galiotto said.

Paules, however, contends there are other motives behind it and, aside from that, believes it costs too much to add.

The whole project, he said, has been estimated at close to $300,000 with the one unisex bathroom making up $50,000 of that itself.

“My whole point is that I’m trying to save this school district money and now we’re going down this road,” Paules said. “The next thing you know they are going to want one of these bathrooms in the high school and then the middle school and the elementary schools. It opens a door I don’t think we need to open.”

Paules’ sign also made mention of litter boxes in classrooms, a nod to the rumors that circulated throughout the past few years that schools were accommodating students who identified as cats.

Officials from school district in states including Minnesota, Colorado and Tennessee have all publicly denied the claims, however. Organizations including Reuters, The Associated Press, USA Today and PolitiFact have also published pieces debunking the rumors.

Palmerton’s weight room renovations are included on an agenda for Tuesday night’s school board workshop, which is slated to begin at 5:30 p.m. at Parkside Education Center along Fourth Street.