By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The mother of a third grade girl attending Mill Plain Elementary School in Vancouver, Washington is demanding changes in a school room program where students are required to pay to use the bathroom. The program was to be a lesson in money management where students received and worked for Monopoly Money to buy items in the classroom but the teacher required a payment of M$50.00 in order to use the bathroom.
Jasmine Al-Ayadhi told reporters her nine year old daughter, Reem, did not want to pay to use the bathroom and ultimately had an accident, causing her both discomfort and having to endure teasing by other children. In agreeing with the need to teach children the value of money Jasmine said, “Work for your money, to earn it, to buy like a little toy or a little squirt gun or a little ball. When it comes to a bathroom issue, when a child has to pay money to use the bathroom – that’s wrong. It’s inhumane. That’s a health issue.”
Reem said the students in her class earn money by doing things, such as good deeds, being nice, and finishing school work. She said she uses the money to buy treats like popcorn and pizza.
She also said each student in her class has to pay their teacher M$50 dollars in pretend money to go to the bathroom.
On Thursday, Reem was down to her last M$50. She also had to go to the bathroom. She wanted to buy popcorn, like her friends were doing. She said she wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom because she didn’t want to pay. She then had an embarrassing accident.
“When it comes to using the bathroom, having to hold her pee, and if she wants to use the bathroom, you make a choice,” Jasmine said. “OK, if you want to use the bathroom it’s going to cost you M$50, but then you don’t have money to buy popcorn. What do you think a child’s going to do?”
The school gave Reem a change of clothes, a pair of royal blue boy’s basketball shorts. Reem said the other kids made fun of her for having an accident, and then for having to wear boys clothes.
“It didn’t feel so well because I had to wear boy pants and I did get teased,” Reem said.
Jasmine said she talked to the principal on Thursday, who promised to follow up about the issue on Friday. As of Friday night, Jasmine said she hadn’t heard back.
“This is a school,” Jasmine said. “This isn’t a jail. This isn’t a prison. We send our kids to school to learn and to get a good education.”
The school’s spokeswoman released a statement.
“We were made aware of the situation Friday evening. We will investigate as soon as possible Monday morning. We work hard to ensure the health and safety of every child and will make sure we do not have any classroom rule that prevents that.”
A similar incident occurred in Lebanon, Oregon and was reported by news station KATU of Portland, Oregon and the school principal dropped the payment requirement after the story aired.
A pediatrician was consulted and provided an opinion of this based upon his experience. Dr. Bruce Birk is a Portland pediatrician. He says that there’s consensus in the medical community on this issue.
“It would be chaos in a classroom for teachers not to have a system,” says Birk. “Holding in the classroom in between well-established potty breaks has not been shown in any sense of the word to be harmful to kids.”
Yet the message this might be teaching children is something that some parents are going to have much objection to. But not only the parents have concerns, the incident at Mill Plain Elementary could have been interpreted as close to violating state law, at least in the sprit of the law as noted by the state legislature.
In 1977, when bathrooms requiring payment were more common, the legislature enacted a law in the state’s Public Health and Safety code to address the issue of those needing to use restrooms and facility owners demanding payment for their use. The law reads:
RCW 70.54.160
Public restrooms — Pay facilities — Penalty.(1) Every establishment which maintains restrooms for use by the public shall not discriminate in charges required between facilities used by men and facilities used by women.
(2) When coin lock controls are used, the controls shall be so allocated as to allow for a proportionate equality of free toilet units available to women as compared with those units available to men, and at least one-half of the units in any restroom shall be free of charge. As used in this section, toilet units are defined as constituting commodes and urinals.
(3) In situations involving coin locks placed on restroom entry doors, admission keys shall be readily provided without charge when requested, and notice as to the availability of the keys shall be posted on the restroom entry door.
(4) Any owner, agent, manager, or other person charged with the responsibility of the operation of an establishment who operates such establishment in violation of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor.
While many could see this as making a mountain out of a mole hill, one has to ask what kind of lesson a policy requiring payment by nine year old students to use a bathroom teaches children.
By Darren Smith
Sources:
KATU
Revised Code of Washington
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
Nick – I have to fight the urge to helicopter, which is my natural inclination. But I don’t want to smother him, or make him feel like he can’t figure things out on his own. So I try to give him room. We’re lucky we live where we do, because he’s been on horses since he was a baby. A lot of kids don’t get the chance to get dirty anymore, and all their play is organized and hyper-supervised. Not as much spontaneous, creative play anymore.
Karen,
I brought back your post
Folks, Karen’s comment is above at 11:38
Annie – and no, obviously I disagree with the video stating that only men are ordained to be leaders.
Annie – I respectfully request that you step back.
Annie:
“No one called anyone “rat excrement” Karen. Could you point out where this occurred?” Sure – at 11:08 you said, “Baloney filled with the asses and snouts of pigs, with some rat droppings for good measure,” in response to Nick’s comment.
Now, I agree that it was a mistake to make kids pay Monopoly money to go to the bathroom. I also agree that the girl’s mom should probably have discussed the girl’s choice to spend her “money” on popcorn (wants) instead of going potty (needs). And that there were more appropriate real life examples the teacher could have used about the importance of spending money on needs before wants. And then the mom should have burned a trail straight to the principal’s office, complained, and demanded an apology. And she never should have publicized her daughter’s real name, especially in today’s day and age of cyber bullying. Because this story is going to be saved in cyberspace for when the daughter has an online presence.
My own father would have likely used it as a teachable moment to never allow a teacher to withhold something like a bathroom from me when in need. And then he would have raised hell at at the school.
The game is flawed, not everyone goes to the bathroom at the same time nor at the same rate. No one started out equal .. but who ever said life was fair?
Cuba might have pay toilets or Mexico. But this was Vancouver, Washington right?. I’m pretty sure no one there has to pay to use the washroom last I recall. Some kind of authoritarianism going on there. Would have been better for $50 for a fountain drink.
Paul,
And of course your translation will be wrong, and it will take days for you to notice.
Stick to the point, Paul:
“. . . paid an ‘opportunity cost’ when she decided on the popcorn over the bathroom. This is something we all do when making purchase, unless we have unlimited amounts of money. I can either use the money to buy this or I can use the money to buy that. Whatever I did not buy is known as an opportunity cost.”
Nick – everyone who participates in the quiz gets a check mark, if they actually get something right, they get a check mark plus.
Darren – I am not sure what the hour is where you are, but it is dark here. All we should be seeing of the lions is yellow eyes. 🙂
chris – I worked places where you clocked on and off to go to the bathroom, but that was so long ago it was in a different life. However, I remember pay toilets and some countries still have them I understand. Things are so bad in NYC there is an app to tell you were the available public restrooms are.
I don’t blame the teacher given the age group, it is very hard in the school setting to come up with a ‘need.’ You cannot prevent them going home and you cannot prevent them going to lunch. And I think is some states recess is a requirement. So, there is not much else. I have yet to hear anyone come up with a need that a third grader would have. If you have a good suggestion, I would love to hear it.
The guys here that believe the 3rd grader should have paid up are disgusting! Sure maybe bathroom breaks are disruptive but a kid goes to school to learn academics not learn about paying to go to the washroom. You guys wanting the 3rd grader to pay are probably the ones slapping and beating your own kids around god forbid if you have any. And thank god if you don’t 🙂
The Lions of Discord are looking upon this thread thinking there will be strife. If the campfire is extinquished, they will return to their den.
Someone in Japan playing video games didn’t want to leave the game to go to the washroom so he held it in and as a result died. Imagine this child did the same thing, would the teacher then be charged with manslaughter?
They’re being taught how to use money and the teacher was holding that against a 3rd grader for something very real. TERRIBLE .. fire the teacher .. better yet, maybe if she needs to use the washroom she needs to come up with $5000/use for a day, and give that money to the child who was humiliated.
Who ever heard of having to pay to go to the bathroom. Every job I’ve ever been in was paid by the hour whether I used the washroom or not. I GOT PAID for it. I did hear where washrooms were prohibited except on breaks and emergencies.
This teacher used a poor example of how to use money, the game was flawed. I bet the teacher will be sued if not the school board will.
Paul,
“I am fascinated by Nick’s stories.”
They become repetitious pretty quick. But that’s ok your fascinated — every knob needs polishing sometime.
Paul,
“This is really an Adam Smith problem.”
Sure it is. Smith saw the value of teaching third-graders the tradeoff between pissing on cue and leveraging held assets.
Paul, LOL x 3!
Nick – that does not mean they did not force her to take an econ course for her BSN.
Annie – what does Ayn Rand have to do with this. This is really an Adam Smith problem.
Nick,
Don’t you claim an empathetic outlook? Maybe you should reassess.
Malo – I am fascinated by Nick’s stories. Would love to hear about your school experiences.
Max – I haven’t seen Nick taunting or making fun of this poor girl. All he said was that she learned a tough lesson. And that is what most parents would have told her – that she made a bad choice.
But those parents would also be burning a trail to the school to object to making kids pay fake money to use a potty and have to hold it (and have an accident when they ran out.)