By ANEEKA SIMONIS
REPORTED toilet restrictions placed on students at a Cardinia Shire primary school have resulted in at least one child wetting himself in the classroom.
Since Thursday 8 October, outraged Bunyip Primary School parents have claimed campus toilets have been locked during break times, with students requiring the use of the bathroom being told to either hold on until their next break or pull the entire class out for an accompanied rest break.
One parent, who did not wish to be identified, said her Year 2 son had an accident in class as a result of the restrictions.
“On Friday, my son went twice for the whole day. If one student has to go, the whole class has to go,” the student’s mum said.
“He had an accident today (Monday 12 October) … he didn’t tell anyone.”
Bunyip Primary School principal Ted Lease said new toilet arrangements were introduced last week as a result of constant vandalism incidents occurring in the male and female toilets.
He said children received a warning about the ongoing misuse of bathrooms on Thursday last week after staff members were alerted to a toilet blocked with excess toilet paper.
“Two or three toilets were completely unusable last week,” Mr Lease said.
Mr Lease, who was not at school on Thursday or Friday last week, said he was not aware of entire classrooms being taken to the toilet during class time at the request of individual students.
He also could not confirm if the toilets were locked during class time on Thursday and Friday, but confirmed toilets were unlocked on Monday 12 October.
“The restrictions we had were that children had to let the teacher know and teacher noted who it was,” he said adding that these restrictions were lifted on Tuesday 13 October.
“Normally during class time, it’s a pretty busy dynamic place, so children would just say to the teacher, ‘I need to go to the toilet’ and teacher would say yes and to take a partner but this time, teachers made sure they noted the student who was going and the time they went, so we could keep a track of it.
“We normally don’t need to do that, but we are trying to find the offender or offenders.”
Another Bunyip Primary School parent said the rule penalised all students based on the actions of few.
“No child should be expected to hold on,” the student’s parent said.
“The whole class is being disrupted because of this … it’s ridiculous.
“People have to be held accountable for damaging property … but it never should have come to this.”
Another parent told the Gazette the restrictions were not done.
“You can’t punish everyone for someone else’s mistake,” the parent said.
Students are always required to take a buddy during bathroom breaks for security reasons.
Mr Lease said the issue would be taken to school council on Monday 19 October.
He will make suggestions for improved toilet paper dispensers to be installed in the student bathrooms to avoid vandalism incidents in the future.
He said it wasn’t uncommon for the Prep to Year 2 students to visit the bathroom as a class during the school day, particularly around 10am during “read and feed” time.
