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
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Elaine, may all children be blessed with a teacher such as yourself! My son had a kindergarten teacher that was one cruel nasty woman. I was picking him up at school one day and stood outside the classroom and heard her screeching at the children. She had been at the school for many years, so when I and several other moms who heard it went to the principal, we got strong pushback. This was a Lutheran school, so before anyone bashes unions, there wasn’t one. Nothing was done and I and other moms took our kids out of that school. A couple of years later she was fired. I shudder to think of how many little kindergarteners she harmed over the years?
feynman,
Parents and educators teach by the example they set for their children/students. When adults treat children cruelly, they set the example that cruel treatment of others is acceptable behavior.
And has no one read Freud and learned of pleasure and pain? How about hate and fear? What about being drawn to a scene of horror that both repulses and hypnotizes.
Freud is soooooo yesterday!!!
@Paul Schulte
It’s called cognitive dissonance.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cognitive%20dissonance
….and not being able to feel physical pain in two places at once? I don’t even believe you believe that. Sudden pain in one area can make us, briefly, forget about pain in another area but after the shock we still have both areas of pain.
Simms – if you read the definition of cognitive dissonance, not being able to feel pain in two places simultaneously does not fit. It might fit with the not being able to be both sympathetic and empathetic simultaneously.
And what kind of a teacher ‘teases’ a hurt child by offering to kick them in the shin? My guess is that teacher is not fondly remembered.
Paul,
Back in the day when I graduated from high school, there weren’t as many job opportunities for women–and expectations about what women should do with their lives was very different from today. Most educated women in those days became teachers, social workers, nurses, and secretaries. Many worked for a couple/few years–then got married, had children and left their professional careers behind. When I became a teacher, what stuck with me about my parochial school experience was that I didn’t want to visit the same kind of educational experience that I had had upon my students. I taught with a firm by loving hand. I wanted my students to have a positive experience in my classroom. I wanted them to behave appropriately AND to be creative, inquisitive, and to feel free to ask questions and for help when they needed it. I’m happy I stayed in the profession for more than thirty years. I had a very rewarding career…and got to know lots of wonderful children and families.
Someone upthread said children can be cruel. Yes.
But what is more disgusting than a teacher who is cruel – cruelty that is done under the guise of ‘tough love’. That is bullsh*t. It is the mark of a cruel bully. That’s the last person I’d want to have his hands on my children. Better fit for prison guard.
Tough love is a recognize behavior modification method. To call someone a bully who uses tough love is to call almost all teachers and most parents bullies.
raff, Thanks much. Skokie is a very nice town. That’s where we were considering to move out of the city prior to us moving to Wi. I grew up around a lotta Jews and their great food. You can get real Jewish food most places in the east. The Midwest is tough. Skokie is an oasis. California is now good, not NYC, but good.
Elaine,
you are right. Anyone who had the nuns or priests or brothers in that era had similar class sizes. The strictness was due in part to the large class sizes, but there were a few nasty ones! 🙂
Nick and Paul,
I never considered Skokie, IL growing up as Nirvana, nor do I consider Woodstock nirvana, but it is a nice place to bring up a family. Kids still play in the streets here and play basketball and street hockey and football, etc. I think the fact that some families have moved out and younger families have moved in. Why is that so hard for either of you to believe? Nick, I released your comment from spamtown.
Paul, for your edification.
http://www.intechopen.com/books/novel-frontiers-of-advanced-neuroimaging/neuroimaging-helps-to-clarify-brain-affective-processing-without-necessarily-clarifying-emotions
Annie – I am part Stoic.
rafflaw,
It sounds like you had a grade school experience much like the one I had. We also had about fifty students in a class. The nuns were extremely strict. I guess one would have to be with that many children in your classroom. I do not have fond memories of those days. I didn’t have a lay teacher in parochial school until my senior year in high school.
Annie – I am surprised you did not learn that while taking your MSN.
Nick – I am sure rafflaw will find it.
Paul, Raff lives in Nirvana, IL.
Elaine – since our grade school and high school experiences are what most form us, after all that stictness you became a teacher. Something stuck. 😉
Help please, I had a comment to raff that was just eaten. Thanks.
raff, I remember lamenting about other things you never see kids doing. I am a baseball coach and lover. Kids only play organized baseball. Pick up games, which I played EVERY day as a kid, are virtually gone. When I brought up that subject a while back you assured me I was wrong, because you see kids in your town doing that all the time. Do you have a time machine or do you live in Nirvana, IL.? Either way, can I join?
Teacher’s Reward Program Charges Second-Graders for Bathroom Breaks
Going to restroom costs kids “Boyd Bucks” that are earned with good behavior
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Teacher-Charges-Second-Graders-for-Bathroom-Breaks-181634781.html