Abolish Bathroom Use Policy at Peru Community Schools

Petition against Peru Community Schools for Bathroom Use Punishment.

There has been a situation during this 2004-2005 school year that was brought to my attention by my children. They were being punished with standing on the wall at recess for needing to use the restroom. I, Walter Campbell Jr., approached Thomas McKaig in a private meeting about the situation. I was told it is the teachers' discretion on how to handle bathroom privileges and that he had asked a Dr. and was told children could go 4 hours without needing to use the restroom. As you will find in my research, it is healthy for a child to use the restroom at least every 2 hours if not more. I brought up that children will have accidents from holding it and not wanting to get in trouble and his response was "Well more children haven't had accidents than have had accidents". I don't think these children should even have the opportunity to have an accident. Every child is different and they drink different amounts of liquid, body retains liquid differently, bladder sizes differ, along with many other differences in children. As I see it using the restroom is not a privilege, it is a necessity for health and psychological reasons. Nothing further was done to investigate the situation.

I did some research on the harms of children not being able to use the restroom and sent these items to school with my children and they were returned to me. The documentation can be viewed at http://www.childadvocate.org/1b.htm or http://www.nospank.net/frbw.htm .

My children are now allowed to go to the restroom when they need to without punishment, but ONLY my children. They are also being treated differently as they do not get in trouble when clearly they should or being let to do things any other child would not ordinarily be allowed to do. This is being done to keep me from filing a lawsuit about the bathroom policy. I do not feel this is fair to the rest of the children in the Peru Community School Corporation, as now this is discrimination to the other children, and ask that something be done. We as adults have OSHA to protect us and it is law that we are able to use the restroom at any time needed, why not our children.

I do know that at Blair Pointe that there are some classes where children are not allowed to use the restroom at all when asked. Then we have Jr. High and High School, where they are given 5 minutes between classes to get books, go to restroom, and make it across the school to get to class. This is not enough time for a normal human to complete such tasks.

I think that the school system has to understand that they need to conform to the needs of the students, not to the needs of the facility. We pay the taxes to keep our schools running and to teach our children. Teaching them that using the restroom is a punishable act is not what we as Miami County residents pay for.

I feel it is our responsibility as parents to know what our schools bathroom use policy is and remedy the situation so that our children know that using the restroom is a normal bodily function and not a punishable act. We as parents have an obligation to be sure our children are safe from physical and mental harm, but letting our schools punish children for a natural body function is considered abuse both physically and mentally. Continued denial of bathroom use will eventually harm our children physically and if they wet themselves they will be harmed mentally.