As a former teacher, this story really hit home. I’ve been in situations in which I felt like I was going to explode as I frantically searched for someone to relieve me so that I could go to the restroom.
At my school, pressing “the button” was a no-no unless there was a detrimental emergency, which, unfortunately, did not include a teacher needing to use the restroom. I have opted to push the panic button for that reason and just took my tongue-lashing later.
If I couldn’t hold it, I sent a student to get another adult, or I stuck my head out the door to grab any adult walking by and begged for three minutes of freedom. A couple of times, I just left. We’ve all been there, where you just can’t wait another minute.
Although other teachers and I have joked about what we felt like doing, I’ve never even considered what a 60-year-old Clayton County, Ga., elementary school substitute is accused of doing on Wednesday, May 18.
Filling in for a fourth-grade classroom teacher at Riverdale Elementary School in Riverdale, Ga., Coleman Eaton Jr. of Atlanta allegedly told the 30 squirming students to “turn and face the front” of the classroom as he walked to the back of the room. Warning them not to turn around [and what child listens to that], he supposedly unzipped his pants and urinated in a trash can.
“A couple of students turned around and observed him,” Major Greg Barney of the Riverdale police told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We do have evidence that he did it.” As in the words of Nicki Minaj in “Did It On ‘Em”: Eeeeeew!
What will become of that “evidence” after a few days? I would hate to work the forensics in that case. Mask, please. One boy claims he saw him zip up his pants. Another said he saw … “it.” The school administration learned of the incident when a boy left the classroom to inform the office.
Eaton said he “poured apple juice” into the trash receptacle. That may be partially true … if he had some for lunch.
Poor man probably really needed that job, but, apparently, he needed to use the restroom even more. As one parent of a child in the classroom said, “I don’t want him to ever work with children again, ever.” She said she and her daughter were shaken up by the incident.
Eaton is being held in the Clayton County Jail on two counts of child molestation with a $25,000 bond on each charge.
