HERRIMAN, Utah -- A Herriman elementary school said it's dealing with a constant mess on playground fields and using school resources to clean up piles of dog waste.
The dog poop is becoming a frustrating problem, according to the Blackridge Elementary School PTA, and they're hoping to find ways to solve the issue.
During lunch recess at Blackridge Elementary School Monday, recess aides kept watch as kids played on the playground and field.
They didn't always have their eyes on the children.
"Dog poop!" yelled one student. Another echoed, "We found dog poop!"
Jennifer England walked over to the field and took a look at a stack of brown logs lying in the grass.
"That is a really disgusting one," she said, as she used a bag to clean the waste up. "I'm going to double bag it."
In several spots, the field is filled with feces from four-legged offenders, making the playground a minefield of poop piles that, the school explained, inevitably end up smashed on the bottom of students' shoes. England said the younger kids come up to her to point out the poop.
"I find that... oh there's some right there," England said, gesturing to a pile she spotted during the interview. "Every day pretty much, give or take, we find at least one to several piles of dog excrement on the field of the playground."
The school said people let their dogs run in the field before and after school, and on weekends. Evidently, they don't pick up what the pups leave behind.
That forces the school to clean it up themselves, and the school indicated that devoting time to doo-doo duty pulls the recess aides away from their kid-watching posts.
"It does take my eyes away from the playground for a little while, or sometimes my entire self away from the playground to go clean up," England said.
Parent Monica Kay, who serves as the vice president of the Blackridge Elementary PTA, found out about the issue when she said the school called her to bring her son another pair of shoes after he stepped in dog waste.
She wasn't particularly happy to hear about the problem.
The PTA plans to brainstorm solutions because Kay said they as parents can help support staff at the school. Though, ideally, Kay and the school indicated they'd appreciate if dog owners simply started to pick up the poop.
After all, Kay said it's a playground, not a dog park.
"It's just a matter of common courtesy to the community," she said.
She'd like to bring awareness to the problem, and Kay said she called Herriman City Code Enforcement to speak with them about it.
The city told Fox 13 they expect dog owners to pick up animal waste, per Herriman City ordinance.
England's main message about the mess?
"Somebody is still cleaning up after your dog even if it's not you," she said. "It's me."
