At the high school where I taught for the past 16 years I have taught, one of the local street gangs blew up a bulletproof window one weekend to enter the library after sabotaging the alarm system and stealing dozens of TVs and laptops. The issue has sparked lively debate in recent months at school committee meetings and online forums in the region, as well as calls and emails to principals and school nurses. A post about health restrictions at New Bedford High School on the New Bedford Live Facebook page in October received nearly 200 comments, from students describing missed class time while waiting in long washroom lines and adults blaming teens. (“If they behaved like civilized people, they could be trusted,” one wrote.) However, there are regulations such as the American Disability Act or the ADA that require companies to accommodate people with disabilities so that everyone who wants to have equal access to necessary facilities. The ADA also applies to schools and other government buildings. The only places where the ADA doesn`t really expand are private facilities, homes, and churches. There is a lack of training and understanding of student health risks in administrative agencies and teachers employed by schools on how best to balance unruly student behavior with actual needs. They tend to take a complete restriction on restroom use to the student body, with the exception of the few students who have doctor`s letters for their pre-existing conditions. (Source) The issue of toilets is at the heart of all the problems we have with the so-called reformers. They blame students and teachers for their repressive policies.

They blame students and teachers for their repressive policies. Students need toilets, but reformers say they need to prove they are worthy. Students need fewer armed police officers on campus, but reformers say they need to gain security by proving they have SEL skills. Students and teachers need stability, but reformers say we need to earn the right to a public school by evaluating “competently.” It seems obvious that students, like adults, have a physical need to use a bathroom during the school day. But in Massachusetts, many schools are closing restrooms to prevent student misconduct and vaping. When I taught middle school in the district, students demolished stalls, shut down sinks and toilets, lit fires in garbage cans, and set off fireworks. And people are wondering why there is a shortage of teachers. TY to let me let off steam.

On K-12 campuses across the country, children`s washroom needs remain in limbo because schools have rarely established policies and teachers lack the training to best balance discipline concerns with children`s needs. For example, only one in five respondents in the 2015 study of more than 4,000 teachers said they had participated in “professional development” on regulating toilets for children. This lack of awareness, combined with sometimes justified fears of school misconduct and disruption, leads to a patchwork of inconsistent rules that teachers could develop themselves. Have you ever heard of a school that locks children out of school washrooms at certain times of the day? There are certainly many more precautions that today`s schools have to take with students and education that they didn`t have to take in the past, which can be difficult for students and school administration. In another school where I taught, the principal was an idiot. Once, at an after-school professional development session, he began condemning all “teachers who called themselves sick today so you don`t have to come to this meeting.” Those of us who sat in front of him were innocent! His approach would certainly have been to close the bathrooms. Some teachers and staff may take extra liberties to prevent children from leaving the classroom by creating their own class policies if there are no formal school toilet policies that determine the child`s right to the toilet. In my school, we had a rule that students could not leave 15 minutes before or after the end of class, unless the student used the word emergency. I remember that my teacher had to ask me, without directly asking me to say the right words, so that he could give me the floor so that I could leave.

leftcoast Yes about Lloyd. I thought the same of Lloyd`s strength. My own experience in SH has been nothing like this. Early 60s. I was amazed to read his experience. I had some experience of representation in public and Catholic schools later in the 70s (this was long before I joined the Church. I visited a Presbyterian church where there was a large group of serious people struggling with serious problems). Ironically, most teachers are familiar with students` bathroom problems – they rarely have the opportunity to relieve themselves during the school day. In a 2015 survey that asked teachers about the quality of their working lives, all 30,000 respondents cited the problem as one of their biggest sources of daily stress.