How Bad Do You Have to Go?

Some students who use the log sheets prefer them because they don't have other people's germs and they're never scrounging for a pass. Other students, such as Samantha Mosquera at Forest Park, find the log absurd.

"Sometimes, I'll just go through the book, and I'll see how many times I've gone to the bathroom in the year, and I'm like, 'What the heck?' It's a lot," said Mosquera, 18, a senior on the crew team, who noted that she has to drink water all day to stay hydrated for her tough afternoon practices. "It should be like college, especially for seniors. We can vote. We can go to war. We should be able to pee whenever we want."

Bathroom rules have become so ingrained in students' psyches that they affect hallway culture. With only five or so minutes between classes, students must make potentially life-altering decisions: Should I go, or should I flirt with my locker neighbor?

At Albert Einstein High School in Montgomery, students find any scrap piece of paper -- or a hand will suffice -- on which to sign a teacher's name and time. But Principal James Fernandez said he wants to order agenda books with log sheets for next year.

"The agenda books provide accountability," Fernandez said.

Sometimes a game of cloak and dagger ensues. At Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Prince George's County, some students have gotten in trouble for swiping blank passes off of teachers' desks and forging teachers' signatures, said Robynne Prince, an assistant principal.

At other times, students get in trouble when they sneak off to a restroom nowhere near their class but within shouting distance to a friend in an another room. Recently, Prince caught a student in the cafeteria who had a pass for the restroom only.

"He said, 'Well I just stopped in to talk to someone,' so I followed him from table to table," she recalled. "I questioned him and said, 'What class do you belong to?' He said, 'English,' but that was on the second floor -- and we were on the first floor, so I know he passed three bathrooms."

That's why, at schools such as Forest Park in Prince William County and W.T. Woodson in Fairfax -- some teachers offer extra credit if students stay put. "It gets the students to plan ahead and organize. It's grown in popularity because teachers feel that it cuts down on disruptions," said Beverly Ellis, an AP history teacher at Forest Park. "I discourage them from leaving unless it's a real emergency. They've got to convince me."

For Daniel Thornton, one of Ellis's students, the system played a minor role in his success. He got a full tuition scholarship to Washington and Lee University. And this week, he expects to be named valedictorian.