A school district in southwestern Missouri reinstated spanking as a type of discipline for students — if their parents approve — despite warnings from public health experts that the practice is not good for students.
Classes resumed recently in the Cassville School District for the very first time since the school board approved bringing back corporal punishment to the 1,900-student district about 60 miles (100 kilometres) southwest of Springfield in June. The district suspended the practice in 2001.
According to the policy, corporal punishment will be effected when other forms of discipline like suspensions do not work and then only with the permission of the superintendent.
While talking to The Springfield News-leader, Superintendent Merlyn Johnson said the decision was made after an anonymous survey revealed that parents, students and school employees were highly concerned about student behaviour and discipline.
He said: “We’ve had people actually thank us for it. Surprisingly, those on social media would probably be appalled to hear us say these things, but the majority of people that I’ve run into have been supportive.”
A Parent, Khristina Harkey, told The Associated Press recently that she was on the fence about Cassville’s policy. She and her husband did not support the development because her 6-year-old son, Anakin Modine, is autistic and would retaliate if he were spanked. However, she said corporal punishment rest her when she was a “troublemaker” during her school days in California.
She said: “There are all different types of kids. Some people need a good butt-whipping. I was one of them.”
Morgan Craven, National Director of Policy, Advocacy and Community Engagement with the Intercultural Development Research Association, a national educational equity non-profit, labelled corporal punishment a “wildly inappropriate, ineffective practice.”
In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporal punishment is constitutional and left the states to set their own policies. Craven said 19 states have laws permitting it in schools. Current data from 2017-18 reveals that around 70,000 children in the U.S. were beaten at least once in their schools.
Craven said students who are beaten at school do not perform well academically as their peers and suffer physical and psychological trauma. Occasionally, children are hurt to the extent that they need medical attention.
Reddy, who described herself as a Black mother of sons and a grandson said: “Look at the history of violence against Black and brown bodies. Since we’ve been in this country, there’s been violence perpetrated against our children, our families, and our fore parents. So when do we stop that kind of violence?”
Elizabeth Gershoff, a Professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas at Austin said disabled students are more prone to be subjected to corporal punishment. She said that made four states (Tennessee, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Louisiana) ban using it for those students.
She remarked that corporal punishment is on the decline with the numbers reducing steadily since the federal government started tracking it in the late 1970s.
She said: “Most schools are realizing, “You know what, we can discipline children, we can guide their behaviour without hitting them.”
The spokesperson of Cassville School District, Mindi Artherton, was not in the office when she was called recently but the woman who answered the phone in her office suggested that the policy should be read. She said staff had already been interviewed many times. Before hanging up, she said: “At this time, we will focus on educating our students.”
According to the policy, a witness from the district, which is in a county that is dominated by whites, must be on ground and the discipline will not be effected in the presence of other students.
The policy says: “When it becomes necessary to use corporal punishment, it shall be administered so that there can be no chance of bodily injury or harm. Striking a student on the head or face is not permitted.”
Periodic efforts to prohibit corporal punishment in schools have not gained traction in Missouri’s Legislature.
A spokeswoman for Missouri’s K-12 education department said the state does not track the districts that allow spanking as those decisions are made at the local level.
Senator Christopher Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, is pushing to ban the use of corporal punishment in schools that get federal funding. He has called it a “barbaric practice” that permits teachers and administrators to abuse students physically.
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