Newspaper staff vote: 25 agree, 1 disagrees

Student: “May I use the restroom?”
Teacher: “If you use a pass.”
The student then silently contemplates whether or not to use the pass or keep it for extra credit, frowns, then sits back down.
If students are wandering the halls, they more than likely know they’re missing class time and evidently negatively impacting themselves in the end, which isn’t really the teacher’s problem.
It’s understandable that teachers can’t have every student go in and out of the classroom every day. But, the fact that some teachers even give out passes only permitting students to leave a certain number of times per semester isn’t necessarily reasonable, especially because those teachers usually let you turn unused passes in for extra credit.
The real question is: extra credit for what?
Lugging around your entire locker in your backpack so you won’t forget anything?
Having a strong enough bladder to sustain an hour-long class because you didn’t have enough time during passing period?
Congratulations.
When a teacher says something like, “What took you so long?” after a student gets back to class, it more than likely makes the student feel bad for something they shouldn’t feel bad about.
Not to mention, it’s extremely inappropriate for anyone to have to explain themselves as to why they “took so long” using the facilities.
Honestly, teachers might as well just slap a barcode on all of us — or even better, use tracking devices to ensure that we’re actually going to the bathroom when we say we are.
We are not cows.
We are human beings.
We have needs, especially girls during certain times of the month.
And we should not be chastised for that.
It just goes to show the “mutual respect” the teachers and administrators say they have for the students isn’t really there.
Think about it — we don’t stop teachers in the hall and immediately interrogate them as to where they’re going and why they aren’t teaching a class, do we?