Building code may dictate whether a unisex bathroom is included as part of a wrestling and weight room renovation project in Palmerton Area School District.

The proposed bathroom has sparked spirited conversation among the community after school board vice president Earl Paules paid for a sign located on Delaware Avenue rallying against it.

Several dozen residents and district parents flooded Palmerton’s school board workshop Tuesday night, where Randy Galiotto, a principal partner of the Alloy5 Architecture firm designing the project plans, provided an update.

Current plans call for the district to construct separate boys and girls locker rooms with three individual showers in each.

“According to the new building code adopted by Pennsylvania in December 2021, if you have a recreational facility and provide more than one shower in each locker room, you have to provide a separate unisex facility,” Galiotto said. “So if you wanted to do away with the unisex bathroom, you’d have to reduce the amount of showers to one for the boys and one for the girls.”

According to district officials, renovations to the facility, which hasn’t seen a major update in over 20 years, have been driven by the need for a better building layout and more equitable locker room space as the popularity of girls’ wrestling continues to explode in Pennsylvania.

“We have boys who are wrestling and have to go across where people are working out in a towel to get back to their team room and that is a problem,” Board President Tammy Recker said. “We need to do better for our kids. We need to fix it. I respect everyone’s opinion, but we can’t have that situation.”

As for the bathroom, Paules said he was upset because original plans didn’t include it and the $30,000 price tag for that space alone stood out.

The entire renovation project, Galiotto said, is estimated at around $375,000.

Palmerton plans to use St. Luke’s University Health Network sponsorship money to pay for a portion of the work, but that only amounts to $40,000 per year for the past three years. Aside from that and around $46,000 left over from the insurance payout after the vehicle accident at the Seventh Street field house, the project would be funded by the district’s capital reserve account.

“We have a football field where the turf is going to need to be redone after 10 years and that’s about $1 million,” Paules said. “We didn’t save a dime for that yet. The money has to come from somewhere. In my opinion, we don’t need a unisex bathroom in that weight room.”

Galiotto spoke in favor of the bathroom Tuesday when addressing the board.

“I do not think it’s a good idea to have bathroom facilities only accessible through locker rooms,” he said. “That locker room is pretty much dedicated to the wrestling team. There are no other team rooms in this facility. For example, if someone not on that team is using the weight room and gets sick, which happens often in these days of protein shakes and supplements, it’s beneficial that a single use facility is available.”

For parents of Palmerton wrestlers, however, the project is about much more than a bathroom. Currently, there is a communal shower in the field house with six shower heads. An inadequate number of showers, Jennifer Ortiz said, would increase the risk of a skin infection, something she has seen firsthand with her son, who developed Molluscum contagiosum after waiting to shower until he got home after practice.

“This renovation is to ensure the health of our wrestlers and give adequate facilities to our young men and women who pour their hearts out on the mat for their team, their coaches, their family and their school,” Ortiz said. “Even if my son is out of school by the time this renovation happens, it doesn’t change the way I feel. This program deserves this renovation and it should not be used as a tool to promote chaos to serve some other agenda.”

If and when the facility is upgraded, it will be the first time Palmerton female wrestler Gretchen Schaible is provided the opportunity to shower after practice. It isn’t just during practices or matches at Palmerton where Schaible has felt the impact of facilities not having caught up with the popularity of girls’ wrestling.

While Palmerton’s male wrestlers head off the bus to change in a typical visiting locker room setting when on the road, Schaible is sent elsewhere.

“In Jim Thorpe, I was given a classroom to change in with the curtains down and paper out over the door window,” she said. “I have been put in janitors’ closets and gym storage closets. I’ve never been given a room with a shower.”

For some residents speaking Tuesday night, however, the cost of the project, or at least the bathroom, is just too much to bear.

“When we vote for you, we expect you to nickel and dime project projects and save money so the next time we get our tax bill we don’t have to wonder where we’re getting the money to pay it,” Constance Banko told board members. “It’s nice to want everything, but you should go after the needs, not the wish list.”

As for where the project heads from here, Recker said the board will get a legal opinion from its solicitor on the building code interpretation provided by Galiotto on Tuesday.

Either way, she said, the board will vote Feb. 21 on how it intends to proceed with the project.

“Our intent was to have the work completed over the summer,” Joe Faenza, district building and grounds supervisor, said. “If we don’t get it approved in February, I don’t see that happening.”