Detention Safer Than Latrine Duty

Teacher Steve Reeves evidently didn’t see federal directives on the back of the bottle warning users to wear rubber gloves, splash goggles, a rubber apron, face mask and other protective gear when he instructed the boys to clean toilets as punishment for talking in study hall. Chad, 12, suffers from seasonal asthma and allergies, his mother, Tracy, said. He was checked out Tuesday by a Dayton ophthalmologist.

“It says, ‘Warning, keep out of reach of children,” Mrs. Vallieu said, pointing to the bottle.
She and her husband, Kenneth, appeared at Monday night’s Milton-Union school board meeting to bring the Dec. 17 disciplinary incident to the public’s attention. It was not until Monday that the Vallieus knew the contents of the cleaning solution. Holiday vacations began after the Dec. 18 school day, Mrs. Vallieu said, and since her son had allergies, she didn’t think too much of his red eyes and runny nose.

“His eyes started getting redder that weekend,” she said, and by Christmas Eve, they were “red as fire.” She took her son to their family doctor, who gave him eye drops. “I didn’t make a connection” between the cleaning incident, which her son had already told her about, and his symptoms. When school resumed Monday, the Vallieus visited Superintendent Darlene Duchene, who had not heard about the bathroom duty. On Tuesday, Duchene said, several steps had been taken by the board to ensure another such incident doesn’t occur.

“We’ve issued a directive to custodial staff and principals to relate to the staff that only authorized individuals are to be using any chemicals and that those cleaning chemicals are to be in a locked cabinet.” She said all parents whose children were involved have been contacted.
Duchene would not say whether Reeves would be reprimanded. “Any disciplinary action would be handled confidentially because that would be a personnel matter,” she said. According to Mrs. Vallieu, Reeves may have been trying to act on a middle school principal’s suggestion to find more innovative means to correct the children. “The principal said detention was getting stale,” Vallieu said. “Kids were getting like, ‘Detention? Oh, big deal.’ “

Chad said Reeves, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday, removed from an unlocked janitorial closet two 32-ounce bottles of the toilet bowl cleaners containing hydrogen chloride and ammonium chloride. He then told the boys to clean bathrooms for the rest of the 45-minute period. John Tuggle, whose company, St. Clair Supply Co. of Eaton, makes the cleaner, said the type used by the boys is the most potent of its four bowl cleaners and is 23 percent hydrogen chloride, or hydrochloric acid. “It’s obvious the teacher did not look at the label,” Tuggle said. “By law, they have to be trained to use it,” he said. Tuggle said Monday his company provided the school with a safety fact sheet.

Mrs. Vallieu said directions on the bottle say to use one ounce of the liquid in a drained toilet in a well-ventilated area. Upon mixture with water, the compound produces toxic fumes.
“The packaging elaborately explains how to take water out of a toilet, which they did not do,” she said. “The kids used 48 ounces – a bottle and a half” and were left unsupervised 45 minutes in the unventilated bathrooms. “They cleaned two bathrooms and started on the third when they all started coughing,” Mrs. Vallieu said.

A teacher overheard the coughing and told them to go outdoors, Chad said. Tim Harker, a member of Dayton’s Regional Hazardous Material Response Team, said hydrochloric acid generally is used to clean bricks and swimming pools. “The fumes will certainly give you a burning sensation to the eyes and nasal passages,” Harker said. “It should be used in a fairly well-ventilated area.” Harker said Chad’s side effects are consistent with exposure to hydrochloric acid. Vallieu said her son should not have mouthed off in study hall when Reeves announced we was sending the other five boys to clean latrines. “Chad said, ‘Oh, gee, can I go, too?’ He popped off. He was wrong. But nothing he did justifies what they were told to do.”