About 24 students at a Texas elementary school were forced to expose their underwear after excrement was found on the floor of the gym, USA Today reported on Wednesday.
Maria Medina is a parent whose 11-year-old daughter, Eliza Medina, was looked over for fecal matter. She said she can understand why teachers would be frustrated, but thought it was taken too far when girls and boys were separated into different rooms and directed to take their pants off.
"I felt uncomfortable, and I didn't want to do it. I felt like they violated my privacy," Eliza said. "I said I didn't want to, but I was told I had to because all the kids had to."
The school this happened at covers all students in all grades and has a total enrollment of about 230 in a town of just 480 residents.
"I was furious," Medina said. "If you can't do your job or you don't know what you're doing, you need to be fired. You shouldn't be here."
Ken Baugh, the school district superintendent, said that making kids drop trow might have been a step too far.
"That's not appropriate, and we do not condone that. So you would take disciplinary action," he said.
But Baugh added that the investigation is ongoing and that, to his understanding, the children weren't forced to pull their pants down all the way, WFAA reported.
"Maybe we can find a much better way to solve this," Superintendent Baugh said.
