FOR TEACHERS AND SCHOOL NURSES
Teachers play a critical role in helping students resolve accidents and chronic constipation, but few teachers receive training on toileting issues.
We offer three free guides to help parents, students, and teachers navigate school situations. Many parents hand these guides to their child's teachers and school nurses; many teachers and nurses download the guides to educate themselves.
A UCSF survey of 4,000 K-5 teachers found:
76% inadvertently fail to promote voiding health
81% allow free access to water during class but 88% encourage students to hold pee during class
36% reward students for not using bathroom passes
The more education teachers receive on voiding health, the more likely they are to set helpful bathroom policies.
For K-12 Teachers
Did you know a student who frequently scratches her bottom is likely constipated? So is a child who constantly asks to use the bathroom or suddenly and desperately needs to pee.
Learn the subtle signs of constipation and why it's critical to allow students to use the bathroom whenever they ask.
For School Nurses
Did you know the same habits fueling the childhood obesity epidemic — eating junk food and sitting around playing video games — also are, in large part, driving the epidemic of accidents and bedwetting? Learn 5 ways that chronic withholding of stool and urine can wreak havoc on a student's body.
In a survey of Iowa elementary teachers. only:
18% reported receiving information about dysfunctional elimination
15% suspected underlying health problems in children who wet or soiled their pants
​
20% to 40% of middle-school and high-school students avoid using school bathrooms because they consider them unsafe or dirty.
In addition to downloading the guides below, read these blog posts:
​
-
You Won't Believe Some Schools' Bathroom Policies
​
​
I have had the privilege of speaking to school nurses and teachers in our area, and I must thank you for your school nurse’s guide. I especially appreciate how the guide addresses the problem of restricting bathroom privileges. In our area, students are actually rewarded at the end of six weeks for not using their bathroom pass!
— Natalie Barganski, RN, CPNP Driscoll Children's Hospital, Pediatric Urology, Corpus Christi, Texas