Current Mood: 
Alarmed & 
Confused
I had something happen to one of my children today, something that makes me angry for a couple of reasons. First, I’m angry at my child because of what they did, secondly, I’m angry at the teacher for creating the situation that caused what my child did.
I’ll stop beating around the bush and tell you what happened. My eldest child is 14 and in the 9th grade. I’ve had many problems with this specific child over the past couple of years that has entailed several detentions and suspensions. It came down to the point that I had no other choice but to home school him for about the last half of last school year. With my being in school myself, and his home schooling being done via a computer and the internet, it didn’t work out very well because I couldn’t trust him to do his work while he was home alone. He did, however, do his work well enough to pass the 8th grade, which was a HUGE relief to me!
My husband and I decided that, even though it went against out better wishes, we had no other choice but to enroll him back into his home school district this year. Much to our amazement, the school year for him has gone wonderfully! That was, until I received a phone call today, which made the words “Here we go again” come out of my mouth.
We received a phone call from his school letting us know that he had been suspended for 2 days for using profanity towards a teacher. To say the least, I was not one bit happy, but I do not discuss things that make me mad while I am driving, so when I picked my son up from school I told him that we would talk about it when we got home. That didn’t work though, he really wanted to tell me what happened, so I told him to go ahead and I listened. He was in his 7-8th period class and HAD to use the restroom. He went up to the teacher and asked her for a pass to use the restroom and was told, “I don’t give out restroom passes”. He then told the teacher that he either had to use the restroom or he was going to pee his pants, to which the teacher replied, “The only way you are leaving this classroom is with a referral”, meaning a trip to the office and more than likely a detention, if not a suspension. He said he knew that he would rather take the punishment then stand there in front of his peers and pee his pants, which I agree with 100%. So he went to his desk, grabbed his notebook and proceeded to walk out of the classroom. This is where my son, in my opinion, went wrong. As he was walking out of the room he back mouthed to the teacher. According to the suspension report he said “Why don’t you do us all a favor and f-ing croak”. He claims he said “Why don’t you do us all a favor and frigging quit”. He swears he didn’t use their version of the “F” word, that he said frigging. I DO NOT condone him back talking to the teacher and being disrespectful, I do not tolerate that here at home and I don’t tolerate him doing it out of the home. For doing that I feel he was 100% in the wrong! BUT, I do feel that if he had been allowed to use the restroom, none of this would have happened.
My question is, do teachers have the legal right to refuse to allow a child to use the restroom? There have been numerous medical studies that have proven holding urine or feces can cause numerous health problems, and if done regularly can cause irreversible damage. With those kinds of facts, how can it be acceptable for a teacher to not allow a child to use the bathroom? Especially if that child is willing to stand up in front of their peers and tell the teacher that if they aren’t allowed to go to the bathroom they will pee their pants. NO teenager that I know of would say a statement like that in front of their peers unless they meant it, and my son is not the type of child that would purposely say something to embarrass himself in front of his peers.
So, this is what I am going to do tomorrow. I will either go into the school or call in, and this is what I plan on saying/asking. I will let them know that I am not trying to fight the suspension, that I feel that my child was in the wrong for using profanity and disrespecting his teacher, but that I do feel that if my child would have been allowed to use the restroom that this entire situation never would have happened. I also plan on asking why he was given an immediate out of school suspension, rather than an in school one, when this is the first problem he has had in school. During his 9th grade orientation they STRESSED that these kids are coming into school with a clean slate, that nothing they had done prior to the first day of school this year mattered. So if his problems in the past 2 years didn’t play a part in this suspension, and this is the first time he has gotten into trouble in school this year, why a 2 day out of school suspension, when in his handbook it clearly states, “An assignment to the Behavior Intervention Center (BIC) is usually made by a dean as a result of student misbehavior. BIG is used to remove a student from the normal classroom setting to provide a “timeout” to consider their actions.” Wouldn’t something like that have been more appropriate for a “first time offender”?
Anyway, I’ll let you know what happens when I go to the school tomorrow. After just now reading his student handbook and little more in depth, I have my thoughts as to why he received a 2 day suspension right off the bat. I’ll go more into detail about it when I find out.
For now, I have to get back to my own homework!
