An update to the potty parity war in Lawrence, NJ:
A policy limiting students at a middle school to 15 bathroom breaks a month has gone down the toilet. Administrators at the Lawrence Middle School revised the rule Wednesday to allow kids to make up to 30 visits a month to the restroom, according to Saturday's editions of the Times of Trenton...
Under the new policy, students may use all 30 passes each month. With about 20 school days a month, that is about 1 1/2 visits each day. Students with health problems or with an emergency must see the school nurse.
School Principal Nancy Pitcher said the policy was not changed in response to parents' complaints, but after a review by administrators.
And that's a good thing why? Why wouldn't parental complaint have had an effect, when this idea of discipline was essentially a public health issue?
"I think the revised policy is baloney," resident Lisa Everson told the newspaper. "Administrators still haven't changed their overall philosophy with dealing with students."
Devoted Reader Regin sent along an example of an alternate philosophy that sounds more effective. This is cut and pasted from alt.tasteless on Usenet (identifying information and profanity deleted; also edited for length):
As the story goes, the school had a severe problem last fall with bomb threats scrawled on the bathroom walls in marker, most likely by a single student. True to military-style discipline, the school board elected to punish all the students in the hopes that the students themselves would ferret out the artist and and correct his behavior.
This is a brilliant insight into what it means to manage an organization in America. Proper management means laziness, short-sightedness and weakness...Let's look at this all-too-familiar approach to management:
Problem: Kid or kids are scrawling stupid bomb threats on the bathroom wall.
Synopsis: Unless we act immediately and wave a big stick, our a***s will be held liable if a bomb actually goes off.
Policy: Limit student's access to the troublesome bathroom, even if it means added expense, paperwork and bad public relations.
Result: Disgruntled students, exasperated parents, asinine bathroom policy red tape and teachers made to look like Nazis. The actual offender is never found.
Pretty good, huh? I see this kind of lazy thinking and weakness from Bush all the way to my small business clients...If you'd like to know how a smart, capable person handles things...
Problem: Kid or kids are scrawling stupid bomb threats on the bathroom wall.
Synopsis: That little f****r is just trying to make me look bad. He's a paper tiger, and he's f****d with the wrong guy.
Policy: Entire student body brought into theater for a meeting. I pace the stage, describing exactly why this bomb threat s**t won't fly in my school. Just before I release the students, I issue a $500 reward for information leading to the offender(s).
Result: Within 45 minutes the offender(s) are nabbed. No excess paperwork, no bad publicity, no frustrated teaching staff and one more notch on my gun belt.
This is how things were handled when I was in high school. My school had no "suspension". Severe infractions like violence or destruction of property were investigated with a cash reward system...offenders were forced to do difficult manual labor without parental OK or notification...I recall every single one of my "in-school suspension" sentences. I was usually too embarrassed to even tell my parents...
1) Skipping class, then stealing food from the bakery. Punishment: two days scrubbing each bakery garbage can perfectly clean. As they filled up, I'd scrape them clean and present them to the VP for inspection. On day two I was required to clean off burrs from the rollers of each garbage can, armed only with a dull boxcutter. (note: I never stole another cupcake!)
2) Smoking. Punishment: Three days sweeping the halls. Fellow students mocked me mercilessly. Each hall was inspected. Loose papers or fuzz resulted in after-school sweeping. Had to tell the folks I missed the bus...
THAT, my friends is MANAGEMENT. That's how you motivate and/or de-motivate, whatever the case may be. I will never forget that little precursor to boot camp and I'm a reasonably thoughtful adult because of it. This namby-pamby "suspension" crap and all this "zero-tolerance" policy is just a mask for managerial laziness and a lack of vision.
Amusing. I remember in our high school most infractions were punished with the dreaded "lunchroom duty" - having to go around and clean the lunch tables, empty trays, and so on. It was humiliating, messy, and cut into the free time at lunch; hence, it was a very useful punishment.
Locking every kid out of the bathroom - not a useful punishment.
Posted by kswygert at February 27, 2004 09:12 AM