NEW YORK — Parents at a Brooklyn elementary school are furious over a fifth-grade teacher’s bathroom policy that prohibits students from jetting to the john more than three times a week.

The stringent policy is limited to the Coney Island classroom of PS 90 teacher Stephanie Warner and is not schoolwide, reports The New York Post.

However, the teacher’s in-depth e-mail explanation of the program to school principal Greta Hawkins earlier this month did not appear to meet with any resistance on the part of the school administrator, according to the paper.

Under Warner’s potty policy, students are given three vouchers a week that entitle them to bathroom visits. A poster hanging on her classroom wall outlines the bathroom rules and explains that students who do not use all three of the vouchers may hand in leftover ones at the end of the week in exchange for tickets they can redeem for small prizes.

The potty policy came to light when one of Warner’s students mentioned the vouchers to his mother.

Parent Sandra Leon told the Post she was outraged by the rules, which her son said were imposed because Warner thought students’ frequent bathroom breaks disrupted class.

Hawkins did not respond to a Post e-mail inquiry either, but a Department of Education spokeswoman told the paper Hawkins planned to put an end to the program and reiterated it had never been enforced schoolwide.

Word of the Day

entitle \in-ˈtī-t^əl, en-\
verb
transitive verb
1: to give a title to : designate
2: to furnish with proper grounds for seeking or claiming something <this ticket entitles the bearer to free admission>

More Vocabulary

Furious: adj. very angry
Potty: n. bathroom (usually used by children or when adults are talking to children)
Redeem: v. to exchange (something, such as a coupon or lottery ticket) for money, an award, etc.
Reiterate: v. to repeat something you have already said in order to emphasize it
Voucher: n. a document that gives you the right to get something (such as a product or service) without paying for it

Phrases & Idioms

Come to light: be revealed or disclosed

• After years of secrecy, it finally came to light that the government has been stealing our money!

Jet: to travel somewhere quickly

• Come on, we have to jet because I need to get home before 5 PM.

John: slang term for bathroom

• Do you mind if I go use the john before our meeting?

Love those Phrasal Verbs!

Hand in: submit work for review

• Did you hand in your writing assignment to your teacher yet?