Story Archive

A Handful

An 8-year-old boy told his teacher a toilet was clogged, so, his parents say, his teacher at Scootney Springs Elementary School in Othello, Wash., told him to unclog it — not with a plunger, not even with gloves, but by reaching in bare-handed. “It’s nothing I haven’t done before,” claimed the teacher, Brent Taylor, according to school district records. Two months earlier, Taylor had taken a hygiene course; he’s been ordered to take it again. He’s also been given a reprimand, and the incident was added to his permanent record. That record also features a charge that he tickled the neck of a high-school girl who was working as a teacher’s aide, and grabbed another angrily by the arm. The 8-year-old was allowed to change schools to get away from students who were teasing him over the incident. But Taylor remains in place. (AC/KEPR Pasco) ...He is, after all, doing a good job getting his students to treat others with the same respect he does.