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LRSD termination appeal hearing held over toilet unclogging incident

Even cleaning a bathroom daily didn't much affect the make-up of the community of microbes living there, scientists say.
Claire Eggers
/
NPR
A Little Rock teacher who was fired after she allegedly asked a student to unclog a toilet with their bare hands appealed her termination.

The Little Rock School Board held a personnel hearing Thursday over whether to overturn the termination of a former kindergarten teacher. Board members voted not to override the termination of Kelly Simon, meaning she will not return to her post.

Simon came under fire after she told an unnamed student at Don Roberts Elementary to unclog a toilet with his bare hands.

Thursday's hearing was packed with other teachers who came to support Simon. Many of the teachers who testified for her at the hearing wrote letters supporting her and broke out in applause for Simon at one point in the proceedings.

David Kizzia, the staff attorney for the LRSD, said “the facts are not in dispute.”

“We’re here for the rights of a child,” he said in an opening statement. “I am going to ask the board to follow their own rules.”

Simon's defense, made through her lawyer, is that the student was misbehaving when he was asked to unclog the toilet. She said she was trying to “help the student experience the natural consequences of his actions in order to hopefully change his behavior.”

Simon is a 12-year teaching veteran, with positive regular performance reviews and a past nomination to be Teacher of the Year.

The incident happened on the morning of August 22 in the bathroom connected to Simon's classroom. Simon said the toilet by then had been clogged three times just a few days into the school year.

“Most five-year-olds are not well trained with bladder control,” she said in her testimony. “So when there’s not a bathroom available, it causes great inconvenience.”

“I feel their pain,” Kizzia responded.

She said three boys went into the bathroom before it was clogged. She asked the boys who had clogged the toilet before sending them to their desks for “think time.” This lasted a “couple of minutes.”

She texted her administrators asking for a “come to Jesus meeting.” Although they did not come in time. When she then addressed the students again, the first two boys denied it.

“I don't know how many five-year-olds you've been around,” she said in her testimony. “But five-year-olds are not very good liars. It was really clear the first two were not responsible. I've been teaching for a while.”

After thinking about what to do, she said she told the third boy that he needed to “unclog the toilet or go to the principal's office.” She said she felt “confident” she was accusing the right student.

“I did not believe it to be a punitive or inappropriate consequence but rather a natural consequence,” she said.

Throughout the hearing, Simon was adamant that a visual inspection found that he unclogged a “sparkling clean toilet absent any sign of urine or fecal matter.” She said she would not have told the student to unclog the toilet if it had been “unclean.” Simon says she then made sure the student washed his hands.

School board member Joyce Wesley asked why he needed to wash his hands if the toilet was clean. Simon said students should wash his hands if they “use the bathroom in any capacity.”

"There has been fecal matter there," Wesley responded. "Couldn’t it be true that truly it could not have been clean?"

Simon then had an email correspondence with the student's parents. The student's mother said she appreciated the teachers' consistency and patience and would “love to hear feedback.” The email implied that the student was falsely accused, but said even if he was rightfully accused, asking him to unclog the toilet “was not an acceptable consequence.”

Simon said in her testimony that, if the student was falsely accused, he would have protested.

“If a five-year-old believes something is not fair, they are going to absolutely tell you about it.”

The mother said the child did not argue back because they “always emphasized the importance of listening to his teachers and following instructions.”

Simon said she didn't have a problem with the parents, and that she wanted to “repair their trust.” She also believed for the student the incident was a “non-event in his world.”

“It seems like if [he] had been humiliated, then that would have been an immediate reaction that I would have seen,” she said.

Simon became emotional during the hearing, explaining she would not handle the situation the same way again. But, she also thought the parents' reaction was a “generational thing.”

Kizzia asked if toilet unclogging was a consequence in the LRSD handbook. Simon admitted it was not.

Don Roberts Elementary Principal Steven Helmick supported the decision to terminate the teacher.

“It's just not acceptable to have a student stick their bare hands in a toilet to unclog it for any reason,” he said.

Helmick said when custodians unclog a toilet, they use equipment. He also said she could have called the front office to get help and not just sent a text message.

He says he told the student that “he didn't do anything to deserve putting his hands in a toilet.”

Leigh Ann Wilson and Greg Adams were the two school board members who did not approve the termination.

A teacher at North Little Rock’s Crystal Hill Elementary was terminated after a similar high-profile incident in 2021.

Correction: an earlier version of this article said only one board member voted against termination. Two board members voted against termination.

Josie Lenora is the Politics/Government Reporter for Little Rock Public Radio.