my county's public schools still spank students!!

[thetabmeister]

I am shocked, guess I've really been living under a rock. apparently for elementary school the principal or vice principal has to call the parents first for approval, and for high school the students have to agree to the spanking but if they refuse to comply they are punished by in-school suspension and their grades docked. I am really glad I am homeschooling. (btw this isnt a homeschooling vs public school sentiment, just my dismay at violence in schools) "oh kids, we have zero tolerance for fighting but WE can beat you." :|

I got all this second hand from my husband who was chatting with a school principal who attends our church. he was not able to ascertain what qualified as a spankable offense. I think it's barbaric, I thought schools were for education not punishment.

[Kailash]

In 1996 I was late for band class too many times (I think it was 3 times) and I got sent to the principal's office. (Public school.) He gave me a choice- in school suspension or 3 swats. My parents had to sign a note giving permission for the swats. I wanted to get it over with so I picked swats over the suspension. I was 17 years old. I grew up in a home that believed God encouraged spanking, so I was no stranger to spanking although it had been years since my last one.

Anyway, all that to say I'm not surprised the practice is still around.

[Revolennon]

I would feel incredibly uncomfortable receiving a spanking from a man that wasn't my dad at age 17. My parents spanked but that ended around 12 or 13 when I started displaying the standard 'f you, you're not gonna get to me' teenage attitude while on the receiving end. They realized I had outgrown spankings and that was that. If my principal had suggested spanking me at 17 I would've thought him a pedo. There's just no way for a grown man to spank a nearly-adult teenage girl without it being icky.

[Swamptribe]

A local school just had a recent controversy. They were assigning laps around the playground (a covered playground, this is Florida, wish we had those when I was a kid) to students as punishment. A few parents actually pitched a fit. the only argument against the practice I though had some validity was that it might make students see exercise as punishment. Shoot, when I was in High School way back when I know of one teacher who was fond of shouting "drop and give me 20" to students acting up.

[2xx1xy1JD]

While I can't really picture myself homeschooling, I'd pull out my kids in a minute and do it if I found out that the local school permitted spanking. Even if I refused it for my children, they would likely find it traumatic to know that it was happening to other kids, and I don't want anyone who is assaulting children to be anywhere near my children.

Is this something that is permitted county by county? Is there any way to get a lobby against it and put it on the ballot next election?

[twinmama]

I think it's state by state.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934191.html

States Not Allowing Corporal Punishment

The following table lists the states that do not allow corporal punishment in schools, according to state name and the year in which corporal punishment was banned.

State Year

banned

Alaska 1989

California 1986

Connecticut 1989

Delaware 2003

Hawaii 1973

Illinois 1993

Iowa 1989

Maine 1975

Maryland 1993

Massachusetts 1971

Michigan 1989

Minnesota 1989

Montana 1991

Nebraska 1988

Nevada 1993

New Hampshire 1983

New Jersey 1867

New York 1985

North Dakota 1989

Ohio 19941

Oregon 1989

Pennsylvania 2005

Rhode Island 1977

South Dakota 1990

Utah 19922

Vermont 1985

Virginia 1989

Washington 1993

West Virginia 1994

Wisconsin 1988

States Allowing Corporal Punishment

State Number of

students hit Percent of

total students

Alabama 33,716 4.5%

Arizona 16 (1)

Arkansas 22,314 4.7

Colorado 8 (1)

Florida 7,185 0.3

Georgia 18,249 1.1

Idaho 111 0.4

Indiana 577 0.5

Kansas 50 .01

Kentucky 2,209 0.3

Louisiana 11,080 1.7

Mississippi 38,131 7.5

Missouri 5,159 0.6

New Mexico 705 0.2

North Carolina 2,705 0.2

Ohio 672 0.04

Oklahoma 14,828 2.3

South Carolina 1,409 0.2

Tennessee 14,868 1.5

Texas 49,197 1.1

U.S. total 223,190 0.46

[RosyDaisy]

And of course my state ranks at the top of the list. However, in my niece and nephew's school can sign a document that their kids cannot be disciplined by corporal punishment. I'm not sure if it's a statewide thing or just their school district...as far as the waivers go that is.

[thekate]

Wow, New Jersey was really ahead of the curve!

[precious_one]

My state is on there. But I just checked my school district's code of conduct and it says corporal punishment is prohibited. I am now curious to what districts in my state still use it. Off to research.

[Jana814]

Wow, New Jersey was really ahead of the curve!

I live in NJ! I'm soo glad that my state has been ahead of curve.

[CynicMom]

A local school just had a recent controversy. They were assigning laps around the playground (a covered playground, this is Florida, wish we had those when I was a kid) to students as punishment. A few parents actually pitched a fit. the only argument against the practice I though had some validity was that it might make students see exercise as punishment. Shoot, when I was in High School way back when I know of one teacher who was fond of shouting "drop and give me 20" to students acting up.

I would object to this punishment. I was always a nonathletic child. I was friends with a few kids who were handicapped. Running as a punishment would either be no punishment at all (if the kid was athletic) or torture that would take an ungodly amount of time (me and several friends). It just piles on the injustice - you get more or less punishment depending on your physical capability regardless of the infraction.

[FreeJosie]

I would feel incredibly uncomfortable receiving a spanking from a man that wasn't my dad at age 17. My parents spanked but that ended around 12 or 13 when I started displaying the standard 'f you, you're not gonna get to me' teenage attitude while on the receiving end. They realized I had outgrown spankings and that was that. If my principal had suggested spanking me at 17 I would've thought him a pedo. There's just no way for a grown man to spank a nearly-adult teenage girl without it being icky.

Agreed, it sounds really creepy to me too.

[Kailash]

I would feel incredibly uncomfortable receiving a spanking from a man that wasn't my dad at age 17. My parents spanked but that ended around 12 or 13 when I started displaying the standard 'f you, you're not gonna get to me' teenage attitude while on the receiving end. They realized I had outgrown spankings and that was that. If my principal had suggested spanking me at 17 I would've thought him a pedo. There's just no way for a grown man to spank a nearly-adult teenage girl without it being icky.

While I didn't think it was "icky" for him to swat me, it was clearly uncomfortable for both of us. I hadn't realized how humiliated I would feel and also how much it would actually hurt. But this was a small school district and I'd known the principal for years.

I would not allow my child to be spanked.

[2xx1xy1JD]

According to those stats, the state with the biggest percentage of kids who have been spanked at school in Mississippi.

Has all that discipline turned Mississippi students into brilliant scholars? Not really.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/1 ... 94528.html

In recently released rankings of how states' primary education systems are preparing students for careers in engineering, Massachusetts, Minnesota and New Jersey top the list. Mississippi trails as the worst in the country, following West Virginia and Louisiana.

[docmom]

I grew up in Scotland in the 1970s when getting hit at school was a way of life for most- they used a leather belt which was pretty fearsome! Luckily I went to a school where it was used very infrequently and never suffered myself, but it was an absolutely accepted part of life then. I even thought it was a good thing when I was a kid (and my parents were non-spankers). Now, I'm appalled at the thought of anyone hitting my children- let alone with a belt. My own children go to a progressive school where they really stress self-control and generally thinking about others. The kids are really well behaved and nice and you don't see any of the types of fights I used to see on the playground in my school. I just don't believe that teaching kids to behave using the threat of violence is either necessary or effective.

[thetabmeister]

the principal my husband was talking to was a woman. She doesn't spank her own son and was uncomfortable having to do so to another child. I believe she is the principal of the high school. I think it's strange that the law requires a principal to spank for certain offenses even if it goes against his or her personal ethics. The schools do offer the parents a chance to sign a waiver prohibiting spanking for their child. I still wish I knew what the spankable offenses are

might be on the books somewhere for my county but we don't have great online organization to access the local government resources.

it does not surprise me to see that the majority of the states that still allow corporal punishment are in the South. The middle to upper class seems to me to be trending away from spanking at home, so maybe someday we will see a reflection of this in the public schools. I wonder if there is any evidence or statistics to correlate income level and spanking? :/

[thetabmeister]

According to those stats, the state with the biggest percentage of kids who have been spanked at school in Mississippi.

Has all that discipline turned Mississippi students into brilliant scholars? Not really.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/1 ... 94528.html

Haha...people from Mississippi...my neighbor is from Mississippi and my husband teases him all the time. I wouldn't say he's below average in intelligence, but he's really naive about life.

[thetabmeister]

I grew up in Scotland in the 1970s when getting hit at school was a way of life for most- they used a leather belt which was pretty fearsome! Luckily I went to a school where it was used very infrequently and never suffered myself, but it was an absolutely accepted part of life then. I even thought it was a good thing when I was a kid (and my parents were non-spankers). Now, I'm appalled at the thought of anyone hitting my children- let alone with a belt. My own children go to a progressive school where they really stress self-control and generally thinking about others. The kids are really well behaved and nice and you don't see any of the types of fights I used to see on the playground in my school. I just don't believe that teaching kids to behave using the threat of violence is either necessary or effective.

yea, kids are smart, they will pick up real quick on the mindset that it's not okay for me to settle my differences on the playground with violence but my superiors or authority figures can settle their differences with me through violence?!?!

[thoughtful]

When I went to college for a music education degree in the early 1970s, I was shocked to find out that some states still allowed spanking in public schools, including the states in which I'd grown up. I'd had no idea.

I hope it will continue to be declared illegal in the remaining states that allow it, but it sure has been a long time coming.

[pattygbucks]

I would object to this punishment. I was always a nonathletic child. I was friends with a few kids who were handicapped. Running as a punishment would either be no punishment at all (if the kid was athletic) or torture that would take an ungodly amount of time (me and several friends). It just piles on the injustice - you get more or less punishment depending on your physical capability regardless of the infraction.

What type of punishment would you consider acceptable? Same question for all those opposed to spanking (which I am one)?

I've worked in school some and sent plenty of kids to the office. Once I had a kindergartner tell me "You can tell me what to do..." when I asked him to clean up his lunch tray. As a preschool teacher, I had a child routinely refuse to hold his backpack when lining up to be dismissed for the day. He then became the last one in line with me carrying his backpack and Mom would so sweetly say to him "Oh darling...did the teacher send too much home for you to carry?"

I get this is a parenting problem (IMO is expanding in our culture)...and I don't have any solutions except consequences for personal irresponsibility.

[flubber]

That's insane that it's still legal...and even more insane that it is used even though it is legal.

My parents were subject to corporal punishment at school, but it was long gone by the time I got to school (in NZ). My parents are both teachers and I think it might have even be outlawed by the time they started in the profession - 40+ years ago.

On the subject of being made to do physical activity as a punishment... that's just part of being a kid. I remember being forced to do all that when I was a kid, including participating in cross countries, and it hasn't made me hate exercise (sure I avoided it like the plague when I was a teenage, but that was just me being a teenager and not wanting to do what I was supposed to do). It's not going to turn the majority off exercise. And the ones it does turn off are probably the ones who wil find any excuse not to exercise anyway.

"Oh I don't exercise, I was forced to do it at school as punishment" would just be one excuse in a whole library of them.

[Marianne]

I'm a music teacher in a music school. I have a project with children from foster home, because I'm a foster home child and music save me. So, when a child has a bad behavior, I have 2 things :

- "So, you don't do this (thinks that he loves)"

- "So, you write 200 times "i don't have to do...", with vowels in green, consonant in red. And you write it now." It works a lot !

But I think that it works because I have a "presence", a big voice, and that I understand how they works, because I was the same little girl.

I thought that we were very severe in France, but when I read this... How THIS can happens ? A teacher spanks a child ? In the United States ??

[Pinkgirl81]

I was spanked in school (private, Christian school) when I was in the 1st grade. The offense? Lying to the teacher about having my homework completed. (granted that was back in 1987/88?) I would be LIVID if anyone spanked my child- regardless of the offense!

[Rescinded and Mended]

That's insane that it's still legal...and even more insane that it is used even though it is legal.

My parents were subject to corporal punishment at school, but it was long gone by the time I got to school (in NZ). My parents are both teachers and I think it might have even be outlawed by the time they started in the profession - 40+ years ago.

On the subject of being made to do physical activity as a punishment... that's just part of being a kid. I remember being forced to do all that when I was a kid, including participating in cross countries, and it hasn't made me hate exercise (sure I avoided it like the plague when I was a teenage, but that was just me being a teenager and not wanting to do what I was supposed to do). It's not going to turn the majority off exercise. And the ones it does turn off are probably the ones who wil find any excuse not to exercise anyway.

"Oh I don't exercise, I was forced to do it at school as punishment" would just be one excuse in a whole library of them.

I remember being punished in middle school by being forced to do laps, along with a lot of other kids in my class. I never thought it was too bad, as punishments went, but I was physically fit enough to run and didn't suffer from any disabilities.

Once, I was caught chewing gum by a gym teacher. She gave me a choice: I could either serve detention with her before school one morning or I could do fifty pushups. It wasn't worth braving my mother's wrath over a detention, so I took the push-ups. The coach was even impressed when I did them correctly. Woke up the next morning with extremely sore arms, but my mom never did find out about me being in trouble, so it was worth it.

The only time I can think of when physical exercise was cruel as a punishment was when I was about 5 years old. I attended the local YMCA daycare, and was taking swimming lessons. The swim instructor had a sadistic streak in him. Classes were not segregated by age then as they are nowadays, which meant that I attended the class with plenty of older kids. Sometimes, those kids would act up, and we would all get in trouble. The coach's solution was to put all of us in the deep end of the pool, and make us tread water without being able to hold onto the sides for 3-5 minutes at a stretch. When you're 9 or 10, this isn't that big a deal, but a 5-year-old who had barely learned to swim? It was much harder for me.

We all had a system worked out. Whenever the phone would ring in the coach's office, which happened to be near the pool, he would have to leave to answer it, so we would all swim over to the edge of the pool and hang on to rest. When the sadist returned, it was business as usual until he let us out of the pool.

[DarkAnts]

My family lived in Florida for a year when I was in the 4th grade. We moved there from Utah. I was shocked when my parents and I had to sign a form agreeing to allow spanking as a form of punishment for public school. I was never exposed to that sort of thing before. I never saw anyone get spanked. Spanking happened after a note being sent home, a parent teacher conference and, a parent teacher principal conference. It was not done on a whim and only the principal spanked students.