SAN ANTONIO — After KENS 5 last week reported about the father of a Great Hearts Western Hills student frustrated after his daughter was forced to remove her mask – violating school policy in the process – parents in the charter school's community are outraged over another issue their children are dealing with.
Those parents say a school policy singles out students who are on their menstrual cycle. School officials say they put the rule in place due to a "longstanding problem of abusing bathroom access."
Parents have called KENS 5 about the "Purple Pass" policy, which they say is only in place at the Western Hills campus, located off Ingram Road on the northwest side of San Antonio.
The rule was put into place last year: A purple slip of paper is used by sixth-through-tenth-grade students when they need a bathroom break during their menstrual cycle.
"I was horrified, I was embarrassed," one mother told KENS 5. "Being a young lady in this day and age is hard enough as it is with everything that's going on in the world. To then have to share your female bodily functions with everyone, I can't even imagine."
In a letter sent to parents Friday morning, Great Hearts Western Hills Headmaster Trinette Keffer wrote that every student gets four bathroom passes per quarter. That's on top of time they get during passing periods, their morning break and lunchtime.
Keffer said, in order "...to protect the female students from being limited by these bathroom procedures, the school created a system for students experiencing their menstruation cycle to access the bathroom, nurse and supplies sufficiently."
Keffer wrote, "This slip of paper is small, purple, and has a Shakespearean quote from Sonnet 18: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate...'"
She went on to say, "...all [students] need to do is discreetly show it to any teacher, and they will be allowed to leave, no questions asked. In years past, girls have kept the slip in their pencil bags. Students who are still nervous about how the procedure works without feeling embarrassed can always access our Upper School Nurse."
>READ THE FULL LETTER FROM KEFFER BELOW:
Mothers of Western Hills students are calling the policy overreach.
"One teacher, when questioning my daughter because she asked to go to the restroom and she presented her purple pass, he said, 'Really, you're using that again? Didn't you just have your cycle?'" one mother told KENS 5. "And this was from a grown man."
The rule, they say, is anything but discreet, in part because the pass is different in appearance.
"That still leaves the question: Why do the girls have a Purple Pass?" one mother said. "So the boys still know and it's still an issue that they can't just discreetly say, 'Can I go to the ladies' room?'"
These mothers now want to remind leaders that menstrual cycles are different for everyone—and emphasize that it's no one's business when it's that time of the month.
"They think it's a violation of their privacy. We're not giving out brown passes for when you need to poop."
Great Hearts Texas officials provided a statement to KENS 5, explaining how the district is addressing the mothers' concerns:
"At Great Hearts Texas, we take the privacy and the wellbeing of our students seriously. We are in the process of creating a district-wide policy that will address concerns raised about the restroom pass policy at Great Hearts Western Hills.
"Our district policy will significantly increase restroom access for students (including significantly increasing the number of passes students can use, where a pass system is applicable), and it will eliminate any reference to why a student is seeking to use the restroom. We would also note that passes enable students to be excused from class to use the restroom, but students also have several other opportunities throughout the school day to use a restroom that do not require using a pass.
"Any student who needs to use the restroom will be afforded the opportunity to do so."
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