Scandal in Texas: A US teacher forbids his students from going to the toilet and forces them to urinate on themselves
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| Students banned from toilets |
Students banned from toilets, several urinated on themselves
Parents were shocked to learn that their children's teacher had banned them from using the toilet during class. Several of them urinated on themselves and spent the rest of the day wet.
Parents at Bartlett Elementary School in Conroe, Texas are particularly upset with Ashley Barrera, the teacher of their children in 1st Grade, the American equivalent of CP. On December 4, 2024, shortly after lunch, she decided to forbid the children from using the toilet during class. However, everyone knows that children can want to go to the toilet outside of recess, and have a hard time holding it in.
Several children urinated on themselves
According to Amber Johnson, a mother of one of the students in the class interviewed by KTRK , the teacher allegedly banned the children from going to the bathroom after she caught one of them being naughty in the hallway. Instead of punishing him, she punished the entire class. But the fact is that some of them really needed to go to the bathroom at some point, and she persisted in her ban, so much so that they peed on themselves. She also indicated this in a text message sent to parents just before the end of class, apologizing but also asking them to explain to their children the need to behave.
The situation has angered parents. Amber Johnson calls it an "outrage" of pure and simple proportions: "These children are traumatized and humiliated. They were mocked. They were crying, begging, pleading and repeatedly asking to go to the bathroom, and they were denied." One parent, Joseph McCauley, believes it amounts to child abuse: "If I sent my child to school smelling like that, they would call social services, investigate me and try to take my children away. So why is it acceptable for my child to go to school clean, prepared, and come home smelling like that?"
A mother who wished to remain anonymous told KHOU 11 that her daughter was among the children who urinated on herself. “She was very upset, she had to walk around in wet clothes and wet shoes ,” she said. Ashley Chancey, another parent, told Click 2 Houston that her son was sitting next to a little girl who had an accident: “He said the class burst out laughing, like 7-year-olds do. And the little girl was absolutely mortified. He said there was pee all over the little girl. There was a puddle of pee on her chair, and no one came to help her, no one came to clean it up for the rest of the day.” According to the parents, the teacher’s aide did not step in to defend the students.
The teacher was fired
Charita Smith, the school's principal, sent a message to parents saying the teacher was suspended and a member of the school's staff would be replacing her while the matter was being investigated. She also stressed that this was not representative of the school.
As per the Conroe Independent School District rules, teachers are prohibited from denying children access to the bathroom. That's why the school district decided to fire the teacher after conducting an investigation. And parents have stepped up to the plate, just in case something like this happens again. McCauley had a discussion with his daughter: "I've told her that if a teacher says, 'You can't go,' and it's an emergency, she's going to walk out of the classroom, go to the bathroom, walk out of the bathroom, go to the principal, and tell the principal that he refused to let her go to the bathroom and that she needs to call her dad right away."
