By Julie Ball, Asheville Citizen-Times
MARSHALL – The Madison County school system is the latest to end the use of corporal punishment in schools.
The school board last month approved a policy on first reading that eliminates the use of paddling, according to Ron Wilcox, superintendent of Madison County Schools.
“It’s something very few school systems in the state are still doing, and we just discussed it, and at the end of our discussion we felt it was time that we changed our position on it, particularly since we weren’t using it,” Wilcox said.
Madison County used corporal punishment just five times last year, according to Tom Vitaglione, senior fellow with NC Child, which has been pushing to end corporal punishment in North Carolina schools.
Under Madison County Schools’ old policy, only a school administrator could paddle a child. Corporal punishment was used rarely and only as a last resort, school officials have said.
Wilcox said one of the reasons for ending the practice was that “very few people were using it at all.”
School officials involved principals before making the decision, “and they were all in favor of it,” he said.
Earlier this year, McDowell County Schools also decided to stop using corporal punishment.
Vitaglione said just a handful of school systems in North Carolina still use it. Three of those — Swain, Macon and Graham — are in Western North Carolina.
Vitaglione said Swain County schools used corporal punishment five times last year. Macon and Graham used it 27 times each, according to Vitaglione.
In 1985, the state began letting individual school systems determine whether to use corporal punishment. In 2008, 60 systems were still using it, but more and more have dropped it. Many systems have moved to Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports or PBIS to manage student behavior.
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