Sometimes students have accidents. Sometimes it’s not an accident! Why would they do that?? (See next week’s post.) Here are the steps to take as a teacher when there’s a code brown in your class.

1. Have the student go to the bathroom to do their best to clean themselves. Sometimes there is an Educational Assistant or ECE who can help them. Tell them to put as much of the poo as possible in the toilet and flush, to use toilet paper to get as much of the rest as possible into the toilet. Remind them to wash their hands well when they are done.
2. Give the students a plastic bag and tell them to put the dirty clothes in the plastic bag.
3. If they have extra clothes (often kindergarten and grade 1 students all have extra clothes at school), give them the clothes. If not, see if the school has extra clothes or clothes in the lost and found you can use (again, many schools do keep extra clothes on hand). Otherwise, they will have to put on their dirty clothes again.
4. Call the caretaker to the code brown in your classroom. You may have to set up pylons or chairs to keep other students away from the mess. 
5. If the student is clean enough, they can continue on in class and you can let the parent know what happened at the end of the day.
6. If it is a very big mess and the child is unable to clean themselves completely, you may have to call the parent to come pick up the child right away. Be sure to give them a plastic bag to sit on while they wait.
7. Be sure to speak with the other students to make sure they do not make fun of the student who had the accident. They are often very embarrassed and sometimes sick. You will want to reassure the student who had the accident that this is normal and happens and it is ok. 
8. Open the windows.