During the first semester last school year, it felt like kids were asking to go the washroom ALL THE TIME! I implemented my usual 1 out at a time rule. I felt like this was a good strategy until someone decided to meet up with their friends and not return to class for half an hour.
In semester 2, I decided that I would try a slightly modified approach in my class with respect to washroom breaks. What I used this time was a punch card hall pass. The hall pass had 20 spaces for potential bathroom use, which worked out to approximately 1 per day for a 4-week month. I didn’t expect students to use all 20 (and no one has… so far), but wanted them to feel like I wasn’t restricting the number of times they could go. I provided students with an incentive to not leave the room. If a student didn’t use their hall pass the entire month, they got to enter their name in a draw and get a prize. I had those students write a snack prize on the back of their punch card and put it in a basket to be drawn the next day. Anything from Jolly Ranchers to Smart Popcorn.
I was amazed at how many students didn’t use the pass because they wanted an opportunity to win that $3-$5 snack prize. A little incentive can go a long way.
When I did have the occasional student out for an unreasonable length of time, I asked them to chat with me out in the hall. I then asked them “What is a reasonable length of time to be out of class”? They often gave me an answer between 5-10 minutes. I would then ask them “And how long were you gone”? and they would give me a number usually pretty close to the length of time they were out. They would then make up the difference at lunch. So if the student told me a reasonable length of time out was 5 minutes and they were gone 15 minutes, then they owed me 10 minutes at lunch. This usually stopped them from repeating the offense.
I didn’t actually keep track of the length of time out, because let’s face it, I had 28 other kids to worry about, but knew they were out for two long if I had a “line” of students waiting to use the washroom. This is when I would have to say “so-and-so is still out, but you are on deck”, then if another student wanted to go, I would say” so-and-so is still not back. Student A is on deck and you are on double deck”. If other students were asking to use the washroom and someone was out, then they had to wait. Obviously, I would let those waiting go if it was an emergency. The student who was out for far too long would then have to make up the difference of the reasonable time out, with the length of time they were actually out as mentioned before.
Sometimes I would have some boys say “Come on Mrs. C, I can’t poop in 10 minutes”. Well I guess there are exceptions to every rule.
I will try this again this school year. I hope that it goes as well, if not better than last year.
As you can see, some students used the pass a lot, and this was a great visual for them to see the length of time they were out of the class.
This could also be modified to use with students who have an IEP that says they are permitted to go for walks in cases of an anxiety attack.
You can find these punch cards here.
There were some instances where a student could find their hall pass. In this case, I usually had a couple of extra ones in my desk drawer and gave them that to use. I didn’t want to deny them because they misplaced their pass. What would you do in that situation?
Check out my first-day blog post here
Have a great day!
Chat soon,
Sherry.