RALEIGH, N.C. — Fewer North Carolina children are being paddled, an increasing trend after one of the school districts that most often used corporal punishment dropped the practice this month.
A report to the state school board last month showed that two school districts accounted for 62 percent of the 891 uses of corporal punishment in the 2010-2011 academic year that ended last June. Robeson County led the state’s handful of remaining counties that mete out physical pain to discipline children with 359 cases, followed by Columbus County with 193.
Columbus County schools suspended paddling earlier this month, days after seeing the collected data, superintendent Alan Faulk said Tuesday.
“That just caught the attention of board members,” Faulk said of the state report. “We want to utilize other forms of discipline.”
North Carolina is among fewer than 20 states that allow paddling. Only about a dozen of the state’s 115 school districts practice corporal punishment. Gaston County is one of several school districts on the 2010-11 report what have since dropped physical punishment.
The state school board has stayed out of the question of whether to employ corporal punishment, leaving that decision to local school districts. State school board chairman Bill Harrison said he hopes the General Assembly will ban the practice, while state schools Superintendent June Atkinson said positive reinforcement is a better technique for molding children.
State law defines corporal punishment as intentionally inflicting physical pain to discipline a student. A law that took effect this academic year allowed a parent or guardian who objected to paddling to block administrators from administering it on their child. That opt-out option was available in the 2010-11 school year for the parents of disabled students.
During the 2009-10 year, there were 1,160 cases of corporal punishment statewide, led by Robeson County schools with 296 cases, the Department of Public Instruction said. There were 990 cases in the 2008-09 academic year, led by Burke County with 329 cases.
“If there is any good news it is that corporal punishment is being used less and less in our public schools,” said Tom Vitaglione, who authored a report on the state data for the advocacy group Action for Children North Carolina.
Paddling has its supporters, including parents, who believe a little pain can correct childhood misbehavior, Faulk said.
In 2010-2011, when Robeson County public schools led the state in cases of corporal punishment, parents or guardians were required to give written consent for their child to be paddled and that remains the policy today, assistant superintendent DeRay Cole said.
Robeson County’s high use of paddling helps explain why American Indians students, who make up 42 percent of the school district in the heartland of the Lumbee tribe, made up 311 cases. That trailed only white students, who represented 331 incidents last year.
By far, the most common reason schools gave for paddling a student last year was disruptive behavior, cited in 40 percent of the 891 incidents, the state report said. Other reasons given include aggressive behavior, insubordination, inappropriate language, and cell phone use, the report said.