SALISBURY, Md. -- School officials are deciding the fate of a Maryland teacher at Salisbury Middle School who instructed three boys who needed a bathroom break to urinate into a soda bottle.

Wicomico County school policy requires eighth-graders to be escorted to the restroom, and the teacher suggested the bottle Friday when an escort was not available.

Preston Whittington told The Salisbury Daily Time his 13-year-old nephew was told to urinate into a soda bottle along with two other boys.

The county's assistant superintendent for Student Services, Allen Brown, told the paper it was "a dumb thing to do." Brown is not releasing the teacher's name, calling it a personnel matter. He said interim Superintendent Thomas Field will review the incident and decide what will happen to the teacher.

The paper reported that excessive requests for bathroom breaks prompted skeptical school officials to require some students to be escorted to the restroom.

Whittington blamed the incident on the strict policies of the school.

"I guess they either have to hold it or mess themselves," he told the paper.

His mother, the boy's guardian, is upset. She told the paper that children should be able to wash their hands or use the restroom in private.

Brown said monitoring of bathroom breaks began because the school had been having problems with students defacing the restrooms -- such as not urinating in the appropriate area.

Brown told the paper that the boys who urinated in a bottle needed to use the restroom around the same time. When the teacher called for an escort and nobody came, the boys were given a bottle. The teacher did not want to leave the entire class unsupervised. Whittington said the bathroom rules are too strict. "I'm a retired correctional officer and we didn't run things like this," he said.