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 use corporal punishment 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.
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.(Emery P. Dalesio, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 3/20/12).
This also appeared in Education Week and 18 other news outlets (03.20.2012)
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