extra time

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Home : 2002 : February : 26

extra time
By Carolyn

I had a child last year with bathroomitis. She asked to go to the bathroom frequently, although she had never brought in a doctor's note to explain a medical condition. I had said "no" often, until her father came in to
yell at the principal about my "too strict" policy. The principal didn't like being yelled at, I suppose, so he told me to just let the girl go. Well, the girl thought she was just going to put her new-found privileges to the test. She asked several times throughout the morning to go to the restroom. I sent her each time. She'd be gone about ten minutes each time. While her father

was well-meaning, I thought he was giving her license to abuse her bathroom privileges, and I told her so. I also told her that I would begin to remove recess time from her to make up work she wasn't completing while in the bathroom. I figured that for every trip to the bathroom she could stay in for ten minutes. She quickly decided that her little scam wasn't going to work, because she wasn't willing to give up recess time to use the bathroom. Interesting fact, though: We went on a field trip to a city about an hour and a half drive from the school. We spend the entire day on the field trip. She must have asked to go to the bathroom once on the entire trip. 'Nuff said.