@tiger1307 you need to read the thread before commenting.
I’m a HS teacher and the rule is: go before the exam. For kids with diagnosed disabilities, we must give (and receive) their exam page by page, with no page returned after leaving the room.
The proctors are usually GSI/TAs. I do NOT want to follow my students to the bathroom, thank you very much. Even if I follow them to the bathroom, am I supposed to watch them to make sure they don’t pull out a phone from under their shirt or something?
Oy vey.
ETA: And as someone with that type of accommodation for when I have flare-ups, I don’t want someone following me to the bathroom. That’s just uncomfortable for everyone involved. Ew.
No one was stopping this student from leaving the room.
As pointed out earlier, if this urinary urgency problem was a recurrent issue for the student, nothing was preventing the student from giving the professor reasonable advance notice to make an accommodation for a medical issue.
I once had a job candidate give advance notice that she was breastfeeding and needed a break during a 4hr interview session to express milk. We scheduled a break for her, and in the end we hired her.
“I think the professor should be FIRED. Not allowing some one to go to the bathroom is childish and immature at best and malicious at worst. If they are really concerned they can have two proctors. The second proctor can follow you to the bathroom”
This response sounds to me self-centered and not well thought-out. Sure, if some kid tells his friend not to go to the bathroom, that sounds “childish” or “malicious”. But school is not a game, and the professor is in a position of authority (and we already know that the rules are on his side anyway). It’s not an arbitrary rule, for reasons that have been extensively explained on this thread and that are frankly obvious anyway.
If a mom says to her kid, “we’re getting in the car soon for a long drive. Please go to the bathroom because it will be a couple hours until our next stop,” that is NOT the same thing as a mom saying, “I forbid you from using the bathroom so that you will be miserable. Ha ha!”
And this wasn’t even like a car ride, because the student could have left and then taken the consequences. There’s a certain narcissism to this idea that the world must grind to a halt because “I have an urge now!”. Even situations with lesser stringencies than final exams have rules about when you can come and go, such as when you’re attending fancy concerts and they literally do not let you in or out, or certainly they don’t let you back in during the performance if you have to leave for an emergency.
I’ve had parents object to our bathroom policy (generally students are not permitted to leave any class to go to the bathroom, except in an emergency, defined as N times per year) - and they seem to get bent out of shape thinking someone is picking on their kid. But the reality is that even a fairly young kid (maybe fourth grade and up?) should be able to go before school, at lunch, and at the end of the day. Often the problem is that the kid doesn’t feel like curtailing his/her own social interactions to use break time to go to the bathroom; sure why not leave during English instead when they feel bored…
Here’s a general rule for all students at all times: if what you propose to do would be annoying, chaotic, destructive, or unfair if all 25 or 100 or 500 of you in the class did it at once or in rapid succession, then please refrain. So yes, go to the bathroom when it’s not class time, and for that matter, sharpen your pencils at home, don’t eat during class, don’t come to school when contagious, don’t get up to throw something in the trash while class is going on, don’t leave your cell phone on with notifications, and so forth.
The ADA applies to all students including college students. The ADA requires reasonable accommodations for all conditions that constitute an impairment. There have been lots of ADA employee bathroom break cases and the employee virtually always wins. If a student requested needed bathroom breaks under the ADA I would be surprised if they lost
^ Yes, if the person had an ADA-eligible condition and if that person goes through the steps to get an accommodation.
Who said otherwise?
romani you should look at the attached. It would appear that the OP did all that is required of them under the ADA/section 504
@tiger1307, you should read the links you post. See this section:
“It is a student’s responsibility to make their needs known in advance. This process is often facilitated by an Office for Students with Disabilities.” Very clear. “It is THEN the school’s responsibility to work with the student…”
Believe me, I’m a big fan of accommodations - my schizophrenic son needs them. But even HE, who hates social interactions, is required to meet with each professor, every semester, and give him a letter from the Office of Students with Disabilities. Even if he has Professor Smith two semesters in a row, the letter is required BOTH semesters.
@mainelonghorn I did read the links to my post
See the secton
“If your situation cannot be resolved informally, you can follow an institution’s internal grievance procedure. All government-funded educational institutions are required to have an internal grievance procedure. You also have the right to file an ADA or 504 complaint with the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education. You have only 180 days after the date of a discriminatory action to file a complaint. Such complaints can take considerable time for the OCR to investigate. You may opt to file a private lawsuit in federal court. If you are successful in your suit, the ADA provides for “injunctive relief” (this means providing the access that was denied or not provided) and attorney’s fees. Damages are generally not available unless it can be established that the discrimination was intentional.”
I am not aware that there is a mandatory requirement of going through OSD even though it is advised. Perhaps some institutions vary on their interpretations of the formal requirements
But if the student didn’t alert the professor to the disability ahead of time, he has no grounds for appeal. The other section I quoted states that clearly.
The OP would have likely had the same problem even if there was a scheduled break half way through the exam, although if only half of the exam was given before the break the consequences might have been less severe. The OP said that they used the bathroom during a previous exam (which the professor allowed), even though they finished the exam in “just over 1” hour. They also were about 30% done with a 3 hour exam, so may have been at about the 1 hour mark or into the exam less than one hour. They likely had to go to the bathroom before 90 minutes since they “rushed this one in just over an hour as well” and had to go to the bathroom with such urgency that they couldn’t concentrate and did poorly on the exam. I don’t know if the OP could make 90 minutes, even after having gone right before the exam. Which begs the question, if we are expected to start scheduling in potty breaks for the whole class during exams, then who gets to decide how much is a reasonable time to expect someone to go without needing a bathroom break? Clearly some people think 3 hours is reasonable, while others are shocked at the very idea. You think 90 minutes is reasonable, but the OP (based on their posts of previous experiences) likely wouldn’t have made it to 90 minutes comfortably (they had to rush through this philosophy exam in just over an hour in order to get to the bathroom, presumably because they were about to burst). To be honest, I would be even more suspicious of cheating if a student needed to use the restroom less than one hour into the exam, unless they disclosed a disability.
@tiger1307 I am by no means an expert in the ADA, but it doesn’t sound to me like OP has much of a case for an appeal based on the information that you provided. Even if we completely disregard anything about registering with the office of students with disabilities or making arrangements with the professor beforehand, the OP did not disclose that they had a disability that required them to use the restroom to the professor, nor did the OP have documentation to support that. It sounded very much like they just asked the professor to use the restroom, the professor said “No, you cannot leave the room during the exam,” and the student finished their exam and then went to the restroom.
From the link you posted:
I’m fairly certain the OP did none of that, considering the OP said that they did not know they needed accommodations for a “bodily function” and acted a little insulted when other posters suggested that they may have a physical disability. They certainly didn’t do it ahead of time, and I highly doubt they did it at the moment of asking to use the restroom.
As far as I can recall, we got bathroom breaks for 3 hour finals when I was an undergrad.
Then again, that was a little before widespread smartphone usage and I could be mis-remembering.
I think it borders on unreasonable to expect people to sit tight with no bathroom break for 3 hours.
A final you can crack by looking at your phone during a quick potty break is a poorly designed final IMHO.
In general, I think creating an atmosphere of intellectual challenge is more effective at combating cheating than command-and-control strictures. Like when I taught freshman writing, we were required to use turnitin.com to check for plagiarism. I happily did it, but for my class it was a waste of the college’s money. You’d never find anything on the internet to satisfy the outre prompts that I came up with. Academic creativity is the best curb to academic dishonesty.
@tiger1307: you just can’t pull the disability card out of your rear an hour into an exam. And according to OP’s posts 1 and 9, he’s 24 and would seem to be relying on the opinion of some professional that was made in high school, an opinion which is at least 6 years old. And most importantly in post # 4 OP states ”No, I don’t have a disability.”. So how in post #107 when you suggest that if OP filed suit under ADA the school would lose, how so when OP him/herself claims no disability.
Someone once told me that they saw students write questions on their hands during their final after looking clueless. Then they asked the professor if they can go to the bathroom, and the professor allowed it. When they returned, they “suddenly knew all the answers.”
Did you steal that from the court scene in Liar, Liar? Holding for a period of less than three hours on a very rare basis isn’t going to put you at high risk for UTI.
I’m a nurse. We routinely go 12 hours without a bathroom break. Now THAT is really not healthy.
Personally, I don’t see what you can do after the fact. They had no prior notice of your disability, you completed the test. There is no way for you to prove that you would have done significantly better with a bathroom break.
I get that you had no intention of cheating, but you seriously don’t get that cheating is a major problem in college exams and they take these measures because of these past incidents?
I like the idea of dividing a long exam in two, and letting everyone take a quick break.
I agree with poster its cruel punishment. Smart phones should be collected at the start of exams. Three hour exams should allow for a break. Just my personal opinion. When I went to college we were allowed to go to the bathroom, heck we even had exams with no proctors and no one cheated. It was impossible to by the questions.
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Smart phones should be collected at the start of exams.
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Seriously?
Do you know how easy it is to have a second or old smart phone to turn in?
So many posters here are asking/answering the question if it is unusual for a healthy student to have to use the bathroom after 3 hours. Anyone that goes on about this student having to “go” after 3 hours did not read the OP carefully. Is 3 hours a long time? That isn’t the point for the Op.
Let’s remember this particular student had to use the bathroom after 2 hours, not 3. He had an hour left, of a 3 hr test, the OP said.
So is it unusual to have to use the bathroom in less than 2 hours? I say yes.
This student should have gone just before what was expected to be a 3 hour test. Then, a healthy student, not on medications, mindful of his food/drink before the test, would be expected to hold out for 3 hours, let alone the 2 this student needed. And if this student didn’t meet those conditions of preparation, then this student is at fault for not being prepared.
If the student did follow all those precautions and still had to “go” again in 2 hours, so bad he was at risk of going in his pants after those 2 hours, then perhaps there IS a medical issue.
@tiger1307, give me a break. You cannot suddenly declare a disability for the first time in the middle of an exam with exactly zero documentation and no prior notice. And I think you know that perfectly well.
“Professor, I need more than the allotted time for this exam.”
“Why is that, tiger1307?”
“Well, I have ADHD, and all my friends with this disability get extra time.”
“Oh, okay. Well then, have at it!”
That is exactly how it DOES NOT WORK.
Secondly, not leaving during final exams is a published policy by this university. NO ONE IS GETTING FIRED for enforcing this published rule. That prof’s lawyer would make mincemeat out of any administrator who attempted to fire a professor for enforcing a university policy. And I think you also know that perfectly well.