Definite Change for Next Year- Bathroom Policy

When I first joined MTC I heard many different opinions about the different procedures that i should include in my opening day agenda. Some stressed homework policies or bell-work procedures. Others stressed the manner in which students enter and exit the room, but almost all included a bathroom policy. After talking with a number of MTC veterans about their personal bathroom policies, I adopted the bathroom pass policy. In its most basic form, this policy holds students to a certain number of bathroom passes, usually on a weekly or monthly basis. When a student has used all of their passes, they can no longer leave the room to go to the bathroom. Teachers may vary the amount of passes they allow students to have or the times when students may use these passes, but the basic system stays the same. My specific bathroom policy was that students would have 2 bathroom passes every two week, they could not go during the first or last 15 minutes of class, and they could only go during independent practice. This policy has been an epic failure for many reasons. For one, at the beginning of the year I was so overwhelmed with everything else that I had to do, that I didn’t make my bathroom passes until about a month into the school year. Secondly, when I finally got my passes, I was not nearly organized enough to keep track of every students passes, and eventually I just abandoned it. I now only use the time constraints which have been in place since the beginning of the year. However, despite these time constraints, I am adamant about having a no bathroom policy next year for the following reasons. Reason #1: Children lie. I don’t mean this in a negative way. It’s just a cold,hard fact of teaching. Kids are kids and kids lie...all the time. They’ll say they’re going to the bathroom and really go make out in the hallways, or make noise in the hallway, or (for all I know) stab someone in the hallway. For their own safety (and chastity), they are not to be trusted. Reason #2: It’s impossible for just one student to go to the bathroom in a single class. After the first person breaks the seal, everyone and their mother finds a reason to go to the bathroom. Students actually stop using the word bathroom, they simply ask, “Can I go after her?...And me after her?” (x14). Heaven forbid, I forget the order that I made a vague mental note of, and I’m subjected to an endless cascade of middle school desperation: “ But, Ms. T, you said that I could go after her!”. It’s quite exhausting, and despite evidence to the contrary, I still refuse to believe that having to go to the bathroom is contagious (I repeat...children lie). Reason #3: Middle schoolers need a lesson in time management, and as a middle school teacher I feel that it is my duty to provide them with one. Go to the bathroom on your own time, munchkins.