Teacher Bathroom Behavior Charges

The following comes from the files of, "You Can't Make This Shit Up!"

Last month Chaz in a blog post wrote...

Up until this previous school year the Office of Legal Services would include every trivial infraction as a specification in an educator's 3020-a charges and this was known as "throwing shit on the wall and hope enough sticks" to get the arbitrator to terminate the educator.  

You left toilet seat up once? It's chargeable. You farted in a non-prescribed, unapproved DOE manner? It's chargeable. Well, check this stuff out.

A colleague of mine just got hit with 3020-a charges today. Among the normal incompetence and teaching stuff were two doozies. Perhaps the first time charges of this type were ever leveled against a teacher. What are the gist of these charges?

Proper bathroom hygiene. I kid you not.

One charge involves my friend, let's call him Aaron Goldstein. One day, in fact one morning, Aaron arrived at his school and suddenly his stomach started to "percolate." His stomach started to rumble, and at this moment Aaron felt the need to relieve himself. Being that he was on the first floor of the school he started heading upstairs to the fourth, and highest, floor where there is the only men's bathroom in the school (This particular school was built over one hundred years ago. If you ever been in one of these the schools, the fourth floor can seem like climbing a mountain).

Aaron ascended the stairs as quickly as he could, trying his best to hold in what is colon wanted to push out. He finally made it into the bathroom but alas, Aaron was a bit too late. Let's just say Aaron missed his target, and instead created a scene such as Jackson Pollock would've. Not just in the stall, but on himself as well.

Aaron, being the professional that he is, cleaned himself up, made sure there were no remnants left behind, cleaned the stall, and reported the issue. He had to. For he had to go home. It is safe to assume that the custodial staff was called in.

I empathize with Aaron. I am diabetic and one of the drugs I take, Metformin, tends to make you this way. One of my biggest fears is that this will happen at school.

Not too long after this incident Aaron had to go pee-pee. Again, Aaron was on the first floor and the men's room was in another time zone. The first floor just had a ladies room as do the third and fourth floors.

Aaron had the pressing need to pee. Now we here at SBSB do not know if Aaron has prostate issues, had an UTI, or had drank an inordinately large amount of water that day. All Aaron was aware of is that he had to pee. Badly.

Aaron went to the first floor ladies room. He made sure no one was in there and he locked it when he went in. He soon had a gladder bladder.

But that is not what Aaron got written up for and what he is now being charged with. Aaron got written up for leaving three droplets of pee on the seat. Yes, Aaron should have lifted the seat and yes an argument can be made that he should not have used the ladies room. But one can also make the case that Aaron was so traumatized from his previous bathroom incident, that he just felt he could not make it to the fourth floor.

This is just inane. This is yet another case of the DOE throwing whatever it can find and  throwing it against the wall, to see what happens. It's also another case about disparities in discipline. If Aaron were a favorite all he would have had was a talking to.

We here at SBSB are calling for an equal distribution of bathrooms in all NYC public schools, as well as ensuring that all bathrooms be no more than two floors from another male or female bathroom. This way we can ensure that there will be no more incidents like Aaron's