Parents at Bartlett Elementary School in Conroe ISD were outraged after the teacher revoked her students’ bathroom privileges

CONROE, Texas (KTRK) — Parents are outraged after a teacher sent a message to families saying she had taken away her class’s right to toilets as a reprimand. As a result, several students wet their pants.

“Pure outrage,” said Amber Johnson, the mother of one of the students.

“This is inappropriate, unhealthy and will not happen,” said Joseph McCauley, the father of one of the students.

Parents at Bartlett Elementary School in Conroe ISD are outraged after several first-graders came home smelling urine. A note from the teacher shared with ABC13 said some students were playing outside the classroom, so she revoked everyone’s privilege to use the restroom.

Johnson’s daughter was in that class.

“These children are traumatized and humiliated. They were made fun of. They cried, begged, pleaded and demanded to go to the bathroom several times, but they were turned away,” Johnson said.

Johnson said she knows a handful of students who wet their pants and then were forced to sit in wet, dirty clothes all day. The parents said they were not notified until after the pickup.

McCauley said his daughter was embarrassed after she peed in class.

“If I sent my child to this school smelling like that, they would call CPS and have an investigation and try to take my child away from me. ‘So how is it okay for my child to go to school clean and prepared? and come home smelling like that?’” McCauley asked.

According to the Conroe ISD Code of Conduct, denying students access to a restroom is against school policy. A statement from the district said a substitute teacher will supervise the class while the teacher is under investigation and that the incident was “not indicative of the safe and caring environment we promote at Bartlett Elementary.”

The parents also claim that a teacher’s assistant was present but never intervened.

“I’ve already told her that if a teacher tells her, ‘You can’t leave’ and it’s an emergency, you leave class, go straight to the toilet, leave the toilet and go straight to the principal.” And you tell the principal that they didn’t let you go to the bathroom and now you have to call my dad,” McCauley said.

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