Classes resumed Tuesday in the Cassville School District for the first time since the school board in June approved the return of corporal punishment in the 1,900-student district about 60 miles (100 kilometers) southwest of Springfield. The district had abandoned the practice in 2001. The policy states that corporal punishment will be used only when other forms of discipline, such as suspensions, have failed and then only with the permission of the supervisor. Superintendent Merlyn Johnson told The Springfield News-Leader that the decision was made after an anonymous survey found that parents, students and school officials were concerned about student behavior and discipline. “We’ve had people really thank us for it,” he said. Surprisingly, those on social media would be surprised to hear us say these things, but the majority of people I’ve met have been supportive.” Parent Khristina Harkey told The Associated Press on Friday that she is on the fence about Cassville’s policy. She and her husband did not participate because her 6-year-old son, Anakin Modine, is autistic and would fight back if hit. But she said corporal punishment worked for her when she was a “troublemaker” during her school years in California. “There are all different types of kids,” Harkey said. “Some people need a good whipping. I was one of them.” Morgan Craven, national director of policy, advocacy and community engagement with the Intercultural Development Research Association, a national education nonprofit, called corporal punishment a “grossly inappropriate, ineffective practice.” The US Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that corporal punishment is constitutional and left states to set their own policies. Craven said 19 states, many in the South, have laws allowing it in schools. The most recent data from 2017-18 shows that about 70,000 children in the US were hit at least once in their schools. Students who are hit at school do not do as well academically as their peers and suffer physical and psychological trauma, Craven said. In some cases, children are so badly hurt that they need medical attention. “If you’re dealing with a situation where a kid goes to school and they can get spanked for, you know, some minor infraction, it certainly creates a really hostile, unpredictable and violent environment,” Craven said. “And that’s not what we want. kids in schools.” But Tess Walters, 54, the guardian of her 8-year-old granddaughter, had no qualms about signing the opt-in papers for corporal punishment. She said the possibility of being spanked is a deterrent for her granddaughter, who has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. “I’ve read some responses from some people on Facebook recently, and they just go over like, ‘Oh, this is abuse, and, oh, you’re just going to threaten them with, you know, violence.’ ‘ And I’m like, ‘What? The child is hit once. they are not beatings.” People just go crazy. They’re just ridiculous,” Walters said. Mitch Prinstein, chief science officer of the American Psychological Association, said decades of research show that corporal punishment will not reduce misbehavior and is likely to increase aggression, anger, hostility and could lead to depression and self-esteem problems . Prinstein said better methods for eliminating unwanted behavior include problem-solving training. rewarding positive behavior, such as with extra recess. and providing extra attention in the classroom. “Parents are experts on what works for their own children,” Prinstein said. “But it’s important for parents to educate themselves on a very substantial scientific literature that demonstrates again that corporal punishment is not a consistently effective way to change unwanted behavior.” Sarah Font, an associate professor of sociology and public policy at Pennsylvania State University, co-authored a 2016 study on the topic. Her research found that districts that use corporal punishment are generally located in poor rural areas in the Republican-leaning southern states. Font said black children are disproportionately subject to it, in part because the policies are more common in areas with higher minority populations. Craven also pointed to racial bias that leads people to view the behavior of black students differently from other students. “And what I always have to say — which I hate to say — is that black kids are not more likely to misbehave in school. They are no more likely to break school rules,” he said. Cassville School District spokeswoman Mindi Artherton was out of the office Friday, and a woman who answered the phone at her office suggested she read the policy. He said staff had already conducted interviews. “At this time, we will focus on educating our students,” he added, before hanging up. The policy says that a witness from the district must be present and that discipline will not be used in front of other students. “When it becomes necessary to use corporal punishment, it will be administered so that there is no possibility of physical injury or harm,” the policy states. “Hitting a student on the head or face is not allowed.” In Missouri, periodic efforts to ban corporal punishment in schools have failed to gain traction in the legislature. The state doesn’t track which districts allow spanking because those decisions are made at the local level, a spokesman for Missouri’s K-12 education department said. US Senator Christopher Murphy, D-Connecticut, is pushing for a ban on the use of corporal punishment in schools that receive federal funding. He called it a “barbaric practice” that allows teachers and administrators to physically abuse students.
