I’m not sure if anyone else has run into this during the five weeks our kiddos have been back at school but we certainly have. Our twins are in middle school and the teachers are apparently cracking down on when these kids are allowed to pee!
It boggles my mind that any one teacher can know the mind of all their students and say with absolute certainty, “You don’t need to pee. Hold it!” I do understand that lots of kiddos use the bathroom as a way to escape the class and stay away longer than they should but you cannot lump all students in the same basket. This to me spells disaster.
Why am I posting about it? My daughter, Kayla, was highly offended by her choir teacher, Mr. Pierce, who would not let her friend out of class to use the restroom to change her tampon. This really is an issue. Young girls in school who are just getting their periods should not have to panic about using the restroom during this time of the month. These girls are already packed full of emotions and add that to the pile you are setting up for some major tears.
Apparently, Mr. Pierce finally let her go but only after several student heckled him about it OUT LOUD! Do you know what this means? Middle school boys were also now privy to this conversation and really should they be? I’m not a prude but privacy would be nice. As a nurse, it’s been drilled into me that you protect your patients privacy at all times and students should have that right to privacy as well. Whoever this poor girl was, she did not deserve to have half the class to know her business before her teacher relented and let her go to the restroom.
The topper to all this, I went to high school with the teacher! I was in choir with him! I knew him very well once upon a time and it just kills me not to march into that classroom and say a few words about this classroom policy. What’s stopping me? My daughters for one and two I’m not always so “politically correct” when I’m upset about something. I would also like to know if this is just an isolated incident.
So come on people! Have you heard similar stories out of your children these last few weeks?
Steeley Grace 