by Edgar Sandoval and Rachel Monahan

New York Daily News

June 14, 2010

This punishment really stinks.

City education officials are investigating charges that a Bronx middle school disciplined students by making them clean toilets, a military-style punishment flush with problems.

"It was gross. I did not want to do it," said Randy Estevez, 14, an eighth-grader at In-Tech Academy in the South Bronx.

Instead of detention, Estevez and another student were assigned janitorial duties, including cleaning up feces, for a couple of hours on two days last fall, he told the Daily News.

His offense, he claimed, was disrupting class. "My teacher was saying I was behaving badly," he said.

The punishment was confirmed by a staff member, who called it an example of"months of abuse" at the school, and said the administration had written off the corporal punishment "as being 'legal' because permission was supposedly granted by the parents."

Contacted by The News, In-Tech Academy Principal Rose Fairweather-Clunie at first denied kids had been sentenced to toilet- bowl cleaning duties.

"Someone's on a mission. This is so untrue," she said, before calling back to say, "It's under investigation."

Mom Sarah Estevez , 46, said she found out about Randy's punishment after the fact, but added she didn't mind because it taught her son to behave.

"I think it's okay. He learned his lesson," Estevez said in Spanish. "It's the only way he's going to learn. Now, next time he wants to misbehave, he'll think about the punishment and behave better."

Another mother whose son also was subjected to bathroom duty said she objected strenuously.