Corporal punishment is returning this school year to schools in a small town in southwest Missouri, where the district will allow it as long as parents give their consent.
In Cassville, school district officials this week informed parents of students about the new policy at a meeting they held, during which they also handed out consent forms, according to a parent who attended.
“Essentially this gives the school another tool to discipline the kids without sending them back home with expulsion where they’re just going to play video games,” said Dylan Burns, 28, a farmer who lives in the area and is in favor of corporal punishment.
Corporal punishment was considered an acceptable means of maintaining discipline in US schools in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but has fallen out of favor in recent decades.
In 1977 the US Supreme Court ruled that corporal punishment in schools is constitutional, giving states the right to decide for themselves. Many have since banned the practice, but 19 states, mostly in the South, allow it, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology.
Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, expressed surprise at the Cassville authorities’ decision.
“The trend in America is going in the opposite direction, schools are doing away with this practice,” he explained. “This is the first time I’ve heard of anyone adopting her.”
The 1,900-student Cassville school district adopted the policy in June, according to its website. It states that corporal punishment is an option “only when all other alternative means of discipline have failed” and must be imposed without “the potential for bodily harm or injury.”
The website does not specify what type of corporal punishment will be applied, but it does emphasize that “one may not hit a student in the head or face.”
“It’s an absolutely horrible practice,” Wexler said. “There is no reason for a teacher or principal to ever hit or assault a child,” he stressed. “It doesn’t make sense, it hurts.”
Burns, who has two school-age children — one in fifth grade and one in kindergarten — said many parents in Cassville, a town of 3,000 near the Arkansas border, support the proposal.
“I think there’s a lot of misinformation out there about it,” he explained. “No one is going to forcibly hold a child and hit them, it’s one or two sticks.”
Burns added that he has already warned his children about the possible consequences of their misbehavior at school. “My kids are fine. I don’t think there will be an issue.”
Source: RES-MPE
Source: Capital
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