<p>This has caused some lively debates in my workplace, so I figured I’d bring it here! Plus I keep getting prompted by CC to post ;).</p>
<p>Personally, I think it was an acceptable action. No one was forced to do anything, and if there wasn’t a sense of urgency I’m sure no kid would have opted to “go” this route! </p>
<p>I completely agree with you, luckysmom. Obviously none of the kids would have done it if they had felt that they could “hold it.” And what is the teacher going to do in a real emergency situation where the kids are trapped in the room for hours – just have them pee their pants? As long as nobody was pressured into it and kids were given as much privacy as possible, it’s fine.</p>
<p>I think it’s acceptable and that the teacher was actually being considerate of the students’ needs. The lockdown procedure was not violated, and I think that the students knew that everybody was cooperating to do the best they could in a difficult situation.</p>
<p>It sometimes amazes me how school officials fail to realize that use of the restroom is often a necessity.</p>
<p>I don’t see a problem with it either. This just shows what can happen in a real emergency situation. I think the school over reacted by putting the teacher on administrative leave.</p>
<p>I can’t believe the teacher is in trouble or on leave for EITHER thing in that article. </p>
<p>Most kids should have been able to “hold it” for one hour but I have been an elementary school teacher…and often when kids ask to use the bathroom in the middle of a class meeting or lesson, I ask them to wait unless they absolutely cannot, or else I’d have people coming and going in the middle of directions, lessons, etc. However, often there are kids who give a “look” or even their bodily actions, reveal that they cannot seem to wait, so I let them go. So, in a lockdown, if the kids didn’t know it was happening and had not gone to the bathroom first, the teacher had to think of something so that they COULD go. I am sure a kid only went in the trash can as a last resort. She set it up to be as private as possible. </p>
<p>The other thing in the article was the cardboard “screen” erected for one student for two hours to keep him from talking to classmates. Well this is NOT far fetched either. There are many many kids who need to have a desk put in a corner with a cubicle around it due to distractions, talking, etc. Some need to be sent to an office for a while. I’d love to see this parent who complained, manage a group of children, where one is either disruptive to others, or else is so distracted that he gets nothing done and needs some “aids” to help him be isolated to do his work. This is pretty common practice. Sending kids to a special room where he is the only one in it with an aid supervising him, or putting the child’s desk with a screen or cubicle are things many teachers do at our elementary school when the need arises.</p>
<p>This story is almost as ridiculous as the story I read last week about an art teacher in Texas not having her contract renewed because she did the unforgiveable - taking her fifth graders to an art museum where <em>gasp</em>, they saw some nude sculptures!</p>
<p>That news item reminded me irresistibly of the episode in All in the Family where Archie Bunker, objecting to Rodin’s The Kiss and Michelangelo’s David, buys “tastefully arrayed” sculptures of unebelievable kitschiness.</p>
<p>I’ve got no problems with the trash can being used as it was in case of emergency. Quite honestly, I do find it hard to believe that five 5th graders could not hold it for less than an hour, but maybe they weren’t told how long the drill would last. As an elementary school nurse, I get several children who come to the clinic after a urinary accident. Often, it is a kindergartner or first-grader and I encourage parents to send in extra clothing for that age group at the beginning of the year. Occasionally, I have a child who doesn’t have extra clothing and it takes a while to contact parents. I hate making them wait in wet clothing … it’s uncomfortable and embarrassing. I say kudos to the teacher for saving the students some possible embarrassment and discomfort. As for the cardboard screen … woopty doo! I see nothing wrong with separating a child from the rest of the class when they cannot follow instructions and serve as a disruption to other students. If some parents would actually discipline their children instead of letting them run the circus at home, we would have better-behaved children in our schools.</p>
<p>I find it unreasonable that the teacher would be disciplined for the actions mentioned in the article. Especially if the teacher & students had no idea how long the lockdown would be, I don’t find it unreasonable that kids would have to use the bathroom (nervousness can definitely cause more “urgency”). Personally, I think the teachers were resourceful and should be commended rather than disciplined & would home my kids would have teachers who are equally resourceful in a similar situation.</p>
<p>Also, since the drill was probably unannounced, perhaps the students were just about to ask to use the restroom right when the lockdown began. So it makes sense (with the additional nervousness factor), that several might not feel that they could not “wait” for an indefinite amount of time.</p>
<p>Well, I’ll be the dissenting voice here, I guess. I can’t get over the fact that it was a drill. I realize that the school is trying to make it as real as possible, but there is no intruder, there’s no reason for students to have to use a trash can as a toilet especially surrounded by twenty or so other students–it’s a drill not a life or death situation. The article said that it was not known what was said to the teacher by the front office, but I can imagine very few reasonable situations in which the best possible solution is to pee in a trash can in public. Unless the teacher’s job was threatened over the phone (it is now in jeopardy presumably) just send the students to the restroom. Breaking a rule like that would have gone over a lot better, at least in my mind, than this fiasco.</p>
<p>I guess no matter what else, the school now knows it has much more to clarify about future “drills,” so these types of situations don’t recur. None of us actually KNOW what was said to the teachers, whether the teachers even knew it was a drill, what the kids were told/knew, etc. We also have no idea how far away from the classroom the bathrooms were.</p>
<p>All in all, this situation seems like the teacher is in trouble no matter what s/he did–if the teacher made the kids wait & someone had an accident, let the kids get out & go to the bathroom & violated the lockdown rules, or did what the teacher thought best by letting them use a trashcan as a toilet. It’s pretty sad to me that under the circumstances the teacher is being discplined. Sure makes teaching more challenging than ever with such options. :(</p>
<p>I agree that the teacher should not have been reprimanded, unless she was told not to do this, or there was a school policy against it. What else was she supposed to do? She gave the children privacy. I find it odd that the drill had to go on for so long and take away from learning. If it was just a drill, wouldn’t 20 minutes have sufficed? Having it be longer probably just made the children more nervous and bored. Schools need to have policies on the “little” issues like this–if there was a lockdown for half a day, bathroom breaks will come up.</p>
<p>Bing…when you say “it was just a drill”…the whole idea in any sort of drill is to go about it as if it is the real thing. So, when the fire drill goes off, do we teach kids to say, “I didn’t evacuate the building because I had to go potty!”? We want them to go about the drill as if real. The problem with drills is when they are not treated as real and so that when it IS real, people may not take them so seriously and/or know what to do. I am not familiar with “lock downs” as those were never done when my kids went to school (my youngest graduated in 2005), but I have been around fire drills a lot. It isn’t that different. If anything, the lock down is longer and the issue of the toilet might come up. Perhaps the instructions to teachers may have included what to do during the long block of time if a child could not wait to use the bathroom. I wonder what those instructions would have been. I still think the reprimand for this teacher is WAY out of line. It is further exaccerberated by the fact that she may also be on leave because she put up a cardboard “screen” for a child in the classroom to prevent talking, disruption, and or distraction, which is ALSO WAY off base. She did nothing wrong in that case either. So, put the two situations together, the “message” to the teacher at the school is wrong, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Bing: It is a “fiasco” only if the school board decides to make it so. In fact, as a drill for a real lockdown, it’s a great idea. Suppose there was a real one, what should one do? The kids got it down pat. Kudoes to them and to the teacher instead of penalties!</p>
<p>Oh. When I was in school, kids who misbehaved had to wear a dunce cap all day. Other punishments: 100 lines of some Latin quotation; 10 laps running around a large courtyard; standing in a corner for the duration of the class. And no parent would ever have dared challenge the authority of teachers to mete out punishment or taken their child out the school.</p>
<p>We also need to remember that not all of the children in our public schools are in perfect health. There are a variety of medical problems that can prompt more frequent and more urgent trips to the bathroom than are necessary for the general population. In my experience (one of my kids has such a medical condition), schools are extremely ill-prepared to cope with these types of medical issues, even in the best of situations, let alone during lockdowns.</p>
<p>We have had “Lock-down” drills at my elementary school. Although we are given warning of which days the drills will occur, we do not know the times. It would be impossible to “prepare” by having all the kids go to the bathroom ahead of time. Our last drill was 10 minutes - which is a long time for little ones to sit against the wall in total silence. Luckily, we have a bathroom in our room and it is fairly well protected. The teacher in question was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Parents would be upset over wet clothes, also - and the garbage can was the only viable option. I think the teacher was justified in allowing them to use the garbage can - and should receive recognition for quick and creative thinking under duress! :)</p>