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.
Now everyone on here who thinks a third grader should go to the bathroom whenever they want raise their hand. Keep them up so we can get a count.
Paul S
Freud may be out of favor – sadism is not. And hate and anger are often experienced together. And the horror that both repels and transfixes.
Keebler 6 comments on this thread. Two praising Elaine. 4 directed @ me. None on this topic.
Paul, Great to have you back. Lot’s of flawed thinking going on here this afternoon.
Right Nick, right. You’re alienating basically everyone on this blog. But keep it up, it’s fun watching a reinactment of the Hindenburg.
As Elaine what her bathroom policy was.
You have clearly got to lighten up. 😛
Paul, Lots of enablers and helicopter parents/teachers here, w/ tough love being a foreign concept. Explains a lot!
Specifically, a parent or a teacher who sets up obstacles to the bathroom is a bully. A teacher or a parent who teases a hurt child with a threat of a kick to the shins is a bully.
You cut off your quote too quickly. It was what followed “Do all the kids get to play the lead in the school play – editor of the school paper?’” that trigger my response.
“No one?” 90% of my comments are substantive. You may not like the substance but c’est la vie. Most of your comments are stalking me and the few other non liberals here. You have maybe the highest number of deletions, or at least I the top 3. Take care of your own self, bro. But, thanks for your input.
Woo, what a thread! I’m sorry, I skipped ninety percent of the comments after mine. I agree with most people that the teacher shouldn’t have made natural release an item to be purchased. Although I’ve had to do that at Seaside Heights, however… Friggin’ arcades. They lure you in with promise of chance, only to have you find the coin operated bathrooms. They left nothing to chance.
Your behavior on this blog is not indicative of the way you say you “feel ” and “think.”
I don’t “feel” everyone should agree w/ me. Much more importantly, I don’t THINK people should agree w/ me. I have said here @ least 25 times, I would consider a world where everyone agreed hell on earth. There was a time, not long ago, where most everyone here did agree on many topics. And, if they didn’t, well there were a few strong arm guys who got you in line or outta here. To think I expect everyone to agree w/ me is unbelievable. I am in a distinct minority here. And, there is NO blog I could ever find where I would agree w/ everyone or vice versa. I’m not an ideologue. I think for myself. When people think for themselves they never agree w/ everyone.
Nick,
You can continue to imply all the negative things that you want to about me. You think you can wound me…make me feel bad. Not so. I consider the source. BTW, I didn’t give you a lesson plan. I responded to comments you made. You didn’t like my comments because I disagree with you on this subject. Well, that’s how it is around here. We can express our opinions…disagree with each other. Unfortunately, it appears you feel everyone should agree with everything you say. Not gonna happen. Get used to it.
https://screen.yahoo.com/down-river-000000356.html
Elaine, that “Why are you angry” stuff is SOOOOOO played. I was just joking w/ raff who seemed a bit peeved. What says I’m angry? Now, there is a VERY angry commenter here, hopefully she went for a walk or worked in her garden to try and get rid of those demons. No Elaine, you can use those stale tactics w/ some of the new people here, but not me. You have to come up w/ a new lesson plan. As most people know, simply because you were a teacher for years does not mean you were any good. Most of the worst teachers are the old timers, just hanging on for the great pension and summers off, using lesson plans yellowed over the decades. You can’t fire them unless they kill a kid. Longevity in the private sector, like having a VERY successful business for years, well that means you PRODUCED. But, govt. workers, all 30 years means is they worked 30 years. More evidence is needed.
Elaine – that was pretty much my policy but I subbed in a school where the students were marched to the bathroom, as a group, on break to go. There was no going in between. And, as I have said before, I had one teacher who made the students carry a toilet seat as their bathroom pass, I had a real hard time enforcing that. Other teachers, in the same school I was teaching in had stricter policies. One had no bathroom breaks. One had 3 bathroom visits per semester, etc.
Nick,
Maybe the reason some schools have few problems with children wetting their pants is because they have good bathroom policies. We allowed children to go to the bathroom when they needed to go. If children needed to go much more frequently than seemed normal, we checked with their parents to see if they might have a medical problem.
Elaine,
You are doing a perfectly fine job casting, catching and filleting the trolls. I’ve really enjoyed reading you today.