How Bad Do You Have to Go?

At Some Schools, It's Bathroom Breaks vs. Grades

Extra credit for unused hall passes helped Forest Park senior Daniel Thornton maintain his grades. (By Preston Keres -- The Washington Post)

Even though Daniel Thornton occasionally needed to go to the bathroom during his AP history course last year, he also needed a B on the midterm to maintain his grade. So he did what lots of students at Forest Park Senior High School in Woodbridge do in their Darwinian pursuit of academic success: Thornton endured a full bladder and instead hoarded his two restroom passes, which, unused, were worth six points of extra credit.

It was enough to bump the 18-year-old's midterm grade from a C-plus to a B.

"Occasionally it made days unpleasant, but I was just very careful. I would try to go in the five minutes beforehand or afterwards, between classes," said Thornton, who will graduate this month. "Some of my classmates definitely had a lot of trouble. People around me would fidget, especially girls."

Bladder control, especially in an era of 90-minute classes, is a vital skill in many Washington area high schools, where administrators often limit access to restrooms during class to reduce interruptions and quash potential mischief in areas without adult supervision.

Restrooms, of course, have been a choice milieu for school scofflaws since the advent of indoor plumbing. With school security a top priority, administrators have become vigilant enforcers as they try to block loitering, bullying or drug use in student restrooms.

At many schools, doors to boys and girls restrooms have been removed altogether. In Montgomery County's Montgomery Blair High School, students can see boys standing at urinals and girls entering and exiting stalls in the bathrooms near the front office.

Teachers have whipped up creative ways to minimize restroom visits during class. Some schools have an extra-credit incentive program, which is not universally embraced among parents or within academic circles. Although advocates say the passes -- which can be used for numerous destinations -- maximize classroom time, critics say it is unfair to give anyone an academic advantage based on something as unacademic as bathroom habits.

"What's the correlation between holding your urine and succeeding on a history test?" asked Kevin Barr, principal of Georgetown Day School, a private school in the District. "My basic assumption is always that kids need to be comfortable and safe to excel in the classroom."

The Spanish class Carol Wesley's 15-year-old daughter takes at W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax County offers hallway extra credit. Although Wesley sympathizes with teachers trying to maintain order, she said, "It's absurd to reward people for not taking care of simple human bodily functions when necessary."

Public schools in the District, Virginia and Maryland do not have systemwide policies about bathroom rules but leave it to individual schools or classroom teachers to decide. Many teachers opt for the simple and venerable hall pass, which has been around for decades. In that case, students carry a visible pass so hallway monitors can immediately tell that they are authorized to be out of class.

Other schools use a more archival approach to keep track of students and their bathroom habits: log sheets on which students must jot down the time they need to leave class and their destination. A teacher's initials are also needed.

The log sheets -- in a small agenda book given out at the beginning of the year -- help teachers check how often students use the restroom during class -- indicating which ones may be cadging a break. In one agenda book, the log sheet is euphemistically called the Hallway Passport.