Second Mississippi district hit with suit over paddling
Regular poster Terry sent this AP story to me Wednesday with the comment, “You would think they would have learned from the first lawsuit, now a second one. This is crazy and needs to stop.”
I agree.
If you read the story, I think you will also agree. (She also sent me this related story from my old paper, the Fort Myers News-Press, and this one from Macon.com)
Mississippi School District Sued Again Over Alleged Paddling of Student
A school district in Mississippi’s Leflore County has been hit with a lawsuit from a student alleging injuries from a paddling.
An 11-year-old is seeking $500,000 from the Greenwood Public School District in a suit filed in Leflore County Circuit Court.
The child’s attorney said photographs show deep bruising on the then-10-year-old’s buttocks and that he also suffered possible kidney damage.
Phone calls by The Greenwood Commonwealth for comment to Superintendent Margie Pulley and the schools’ attorney, Richard Oakes, were not returned.
Last month, the guardian of a 6-year-old kindergartner also filed a $500,000 lawsuit against the Leflore County School District for alleged paddlings.
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79 comments Add your comment
J4A
October 29th, 2009
2:46 pm
Kathy ????
J4A
October 29th, 2009
2:49 pm
Sorry that I didnt put the complete link for the barrow.k12.ga.us.com Here it is!
Carol Sadler, IEPadvocate4you
October 29th, 2009
2:49 pm
I agree 100% with ASADAH. Educators should have the skills to deal with their students behaviors. School districts receive funding for this purpose. USE IT!
Many students paddled are students with unidentified disabilities. Why aren’t unruly children tested for disabilities in the school system before we beat them? If there is a pattern of disrespect, defiance, and unruly behavior, educators have a Federal responsibility under Child Find to seek out, test and identify children with disabiltiies. Do it! They should be making referrals for full and comprehensive evaluations.
I have represented several students with disabilities who have been physically and emotionally harmed and abused by school systems. I’ve reported these cases in GA to the GA Advocacy Office, Council of Parent Advocates and Attorneys, and to our legislatures. It is outrageous that more is not done to stop this abuse. Our tax dollars are being used to defend these school districts and their educators who do these things. It is just wrong.
Thank you AJC for your continued coverage of this very important issue, for the children’s sake!
Mom2_6
October 29th, 2009
6:00 pm
A wooden implement wielded by an adult against a child is called BEATING. This is not corporal punishment – which by the way is outlawwed in the military, our prisons, by foster parents. Why should schools get a pass.
Corporal punishment is an adult hand applied to the diapered bottom of an age 2 child who touchs Grandma’s fragile times .
If you are hitting so hard that you need an implement, you need to be boxibng, in a ring, not beating children.
Rick Tallman
October 29th, 2009
10:01 pm
DeKalb Conservative asked “Are there any examples of academic excellence coming out of MS?”
Well, there are Harry Truman, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, John Grisham, Elvis, Archie Manning, Brett Favre, Jerry Rice, Jim Henson and Oprah Winfrey to name a few.
Terry
October 29th, 2009
11:10 pm
Didn’t the governor set up a school abuse working group here in Georgia? Wonder what the latest is on that. Maureen, do you know?
Sarge
October 30th, 2009
1:42 am
Assuming the paddle was applied to the wayward student’s “six”, how was the kidney affected? By the time I graduated from hs (Viet Nam was just cranking up), my six was finally cooling down. Somehow, in spite of all the “warming sessions”, my kidneys remained intact. Has human anatomy changed that much?
Tom Johnson
October 30th, 2009
3:26 am
Some arguments to consider:
1. School paddling violates Title IX insofar as boys and girls are impacted differently, given that unlike boys, girls who have entered puberty would have to reveal intimate personal information in order to avoid the chance of this punishment being unfairly compounded by menstrual discomfort, or a risk factor where there is the possibility of pregnancy.
2. The general immunity to litigation over corporal punishment which state law has given teachers and principals effectively and unconstitutionally denies students and parents the remedy of civil action that was essential to the Supreme Court’s decision in 1977 upholding school corporal punishment.
3. The legitimacy of male principals spanking female students is at odds with prevailing sexual harassment codes, which bar male employers from spanking female employees (minors or otherwise).
4. The spanking paddle itself was originally invented not for use on schoolchildren but rather as a tool for beating slaves. The idea was to have something that would inflict terrible pain without causing the kind of permanent tissue damage that could lower a slave’s market value. While the corporal punishment of slaves has most often been portrayed as using a whip, it was also fairly common practice by the mid 1800’s, at least in certain states, to use a paddle instead.(This will not be news to anyone who has studied American slavery in depth or seen the 1975 movie “Mandingo.”) Although nobody would suggest that students today are paddled with the same degree of severity that slaves were, it is important to recognize that extreme severity is what this instrument was designed for. It is virtually unheard of, moreover, for school personnel to receive any professional training in how to paddle students, to be required beforehand to demonstrate competence at doing it safely and judiciously, to have their paddles inspected and held to any standards of size, weight, composition, or craftsmanship, and least of all to have the velocity of their swing measured. Thus, we can reasonably expect that paddlers will often times hit harder than they intend to, or in some cases, hit parts of the body they don’t intend to.
5. The spanking of kids at school could be videotaped without anyone’s knowledge, which is a lot easier with the tiny cameras they make nowadays. If someone were to circulate that video on the Internet, it could be really humiliating for the student. Not to mention that there’s a black market for images of children being spanked. The FBI broke up a nationwide child-spanking pornography ring in 2002, incredible as that may sound, and at least two of its members worked in public schools.
7. Dropout rates, violent crime, and other problems are most concentrated among states and localities where paddling is still allowed. It’s also worth noting that among the top 100 U.S. schools ranked by Newsweek in 2003, not a single one is a paddling school.
8. The many groups supporting a ban on corporal punishment include The National Association of School Boards, The American Academy of Pediatrics, and The National Association of School Nurses.
9. Judge Herman Thomas of Mobile, Alabama.
Another side
October 30th, 2009
8:49 am
Sarge- The kidneys are quite easily hit during a spanking, especially a beating as violent as this one apparently was, when an injured person is twisting and fighting to get away. A large, angry adult, slamming away with a paddle and holding on to a writhing small child, will not have control or aim.
J4A
October 30th, 2009
12:57 pm
Mike and Amos- If you know so much about the “fraud” aspect of this then why do you still have cp in your schools? I didn’t hear you say that you think it’s wrong to hit another’s child, but that you were afraid of being fraudulently sued from hitting children.I believe you are implying that this parent may have Maunchausen Syndrome. There are so many administrators pulling the Maunchausen (sp?) Syndrome card on parents when parents disagree with the schools abuse of their child, most of these parents have children with disabilities. You better be careful as one day all these parents may find each other and this will all be brought out in the open.
To my knowledge, public schools and school personnel ( Special Ed. Director; Superintendent; Principal; Teachers; Paraprofessionals etc.) are funded by community tax payers ( parent’s, property owners and local businesses). In other words the taxpayers are basically the employers of the school employees. The employers need to regain authority of our schools. We should be the decision makers. We should be able to fire and rid our schools of unprofessional employees that go against our authority and especially such a serious threat as hitting, paddling, inflicting pain, corporal punishment, or whatever term you choose to use, it still boils down to child abuse. Am I wrong about this?
Why are parent’s even NEGOTIATING removing corporal punishment from schools?
J4A
October 30th, 2009
1:26 pm
Here is a site that you can access to see the Education Rank of your state. The alec stands for American Legislative Exchange Council. I believe Georgia ranks # 44 and Mississippi ranks # 50 of the 51 states. There is a wealth of information for parents on this site.
http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Report_Card_On_American_Education.com
Another side
October 30th, 2009
4:48 pm
gatorman770..perhaps all that bitterness towards kids is due to the anger and helplessness you suffered while being beat so much…it’s not fair, huh? You sound like a poster child for why kids should not be beat…all that residual resentfulness and anger and frustration. The world is actually full of wonderful, well-adjusted, responsible, resourceful kids. I’m sorry you are missing that. And just like the discovery that wearing a seatbelt could have saved a lot of lives in the past, it has been discovered that guns and knives at school never were a good idea at all.
Floridamom
October 30th, 2009
11:23 pm
It’s hard to believe that in 2009 paddling children in the public school system is still allowed. Are we living in the dark ages?
Hitting children is never going to teach them anything but violence. It will teach them that hitting others is acceptable.
Paddling children should be abolished in all public schools and in all states.
Our children deserve to be treated better then this when they go to school and no one should ever put their hands on them.
Floridamom
October 30th, 2009
11:32 pm
Why are public schools allowed to beat our children and get away with it? When did it become acceptable to beat children in the public school system and who will put a STOP to this abuse? If parents did the same thing that school staff are allowed to do our children would be take away from us and we would be sitting in a jail cell.
Gary Klahr
October 31st, 2009
2:49 am
Corporal punishment is barbaric and should be illegal—as it is in most states. Far from kids having TOO MANY RIGHTS as most of you contend, they have almost none—especially in the South covered by the 5th Circuit Ct of Appeals. That Court has upheld curfews—even against parent permission, expelling kids for long hair, and recently in the PALMER case from TX upheld punishing a kid for wearing a John Edwards for Pres. tee shirt!!! It is the GOVERNMENT that is out of control—NOT the kids. I am a retired attorney and served 8 years on the Gov. Bd of the 2nd largest HS district in the nation—the 25k Phx Union District in Az.
SRolfs
October 31st, 2009
8:14 am
There are laws about child abuse and abuse is anyone touching a child on their butts or elsewhere. No one has a right to touch a child in any area of their private areas…that includes educators. Spanking a child is tellling them it is okay for a teacher/principle to hit a student in his/her private area. This action breaks the confidence and trust in a teacher(s) that this child may have had and it humiliates the student in front of their peers. The is nothing right about spanking a student. Stop and think how it changes the views of all students toward the one doing the spanking…it sends a loud message…if the can spank (which is nothing more than hitting),then it is okay for students to hit and protect themselfs from the spanker. I ask? Do teachers/princpiles take a class in spanking and learning how not to damamge the internal organs of a child receiving the blows from the attacher? In my experience of the watching my brother almost died from a spanking with a wooden paddle. The answer is no. My brother’s spleen burst due to the force of the blows. Parents never allow your child to spanked by an educator…it is wrong and child abuse anyway you look at it.
J4A
October 31st, 2009
11:32 am
ASADAH, I am sure happy to hear a voice of “educated reasoning” from an educator. Did you take continuing education units ( besides the required college courses for receiving a teaching certificate, early childhood development etc.) or behavioral training / professional staff development with technical assistance that helped you understand behaviors in children? We need more educators ( with your knowledge) like you in all our schools.
I don’t believe our educators ( teachers, administrators, counselors, para,s etc. etc.) have the support mechanisms in place for them in our schools. College academic courses do not prepare or train these teachers on the behavioral aspects of childhood, much less the behavioral aspects of children with disabilities. I have had extensive behavioral training ( I paid for this) and I am a parent of a non verbal, very unaggressive child with autism. I removed my child from school as I did not want him to become aggressive by being taught aggression ( mechanical restraint in preschool at 3.5 yrs. of age). I asked that a Behavior Intervention Plan be written into his IEP and was told “your child doesn’t have bad behaviors.”I was shocked by the complete lack of knowledge by this team of educators working with my young child. The word “BEHAVIOR” doesn’t mean “BAD” behavior. A behavior is anything that a person/child does in any activity of daily life, such as driving a car, blowing your nose, eating, washing your hands-ETC.
Carol S. brought up valid information that I would like to further elaborate. There are thousands of dollars in Federal grant money that is set aside (each year) for states to utilize for the purpose of professional staff development of ALL school personnel ( & parents) that have CONTACT with children in our schools and homes. This money can be used for personnel training and technical assistance by entities that can come into the schools/homes and train staff/parents on the behavioral aspects of children. Parent’s should also receive this training. The Positive Behavior Support (PBS), technical training , etc. can be utilized for a whole school district. This can be used in place of Corp. Punishment to change behaviors using a less abusive approach
The grant money( in our state-GA.) has not been requested or used for a few years now. This money will become less each year as it is not seen to be needed by states. There are some districts that may be requesting this money but using it for other unapproved purposes. If this grant (money) is requested by a district and is not used for the intended purpose , it should be sent back.
When most districts do request this staff development it is usually by “cost effective” entities (such as RESA’s) that are not qualified to provide this level of training. Even then only certain staff members attend this training (1-spec. ed. consult teacher,1- spec. ed. teacher,1- admin, 1- counselor) and this handful of school staff are responsible to train other staff ” as needed”.
Our teachers who ACTUALLY teach children on a daily basis need this DIRECT training. Teachers are front line person’s when it comes to daily contact with children. Hypo.- Would you send a front line army of people into a war zone without the proper training and equipment? I don’t think so.
Teachers are afraid to speak up as they fear losing their jobs, licensing or worse. Parent’s can request that this support and training be provided for individual teachers or for complete districts. Teachers need our support. Not all teachers agree with corp. punish. and their hands are tied as c.p. is either approved by their school or districts.
J4A
October 31st, 2009
2:20 pm
Want to clarify my Hypo. re: the army. I was not intending to state that classrooms are like war zones in any way. Just trying to confirm the importance of “training”.
J4A
November 1st, 2009
10:06 am
I would like to know if the abuse, restraint, and seclusion of children in schools is reported by advocates and attorneys who are aware of this happening ( without a doubt) to children? I know that one advocate stated they had reported this before. What are the reporting procedures that parents and others need to take? Who does a person contact? Georgia Advocacy Office? Dept. of Ed.?
Michelle
November 1st, 2009
10:38 am
Its insightful that most of the states that still alow corporal punishment of children were slave states. Children are allowed to be hit relates to the idea that children are property as African Americans and women once were.
For those who are child advocates and want the barbaric practice of physically assaulting them to cease, please join me in signing the petition I started.
Thanks☺
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/america39s-behind–ban-the-physical-assault-of-children
Michelle
November 1st, 2009
10:52 am
Its very insightful that nearly all of the states that allow corporal punishment of children were once slave states. Allowing to be hit relates to property rights-the idea that some groups of humans are more powerful than another. Women and African Americans both were thought to be inferior to young white men.
As the the comment that children are hit less, in the home setting its about as high. Form children that have corporal punishment inflicted on them in the school setting, consider the high rates of drug use and pregnancy rates. Hitting negatively affects the whole person.
For those that want to ban the barbaric practice of corporal punishment of children, please join me in signing my petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/america39s-behind–ban-the-physical-assault-of-children
Michelle
November 1st, 2009
12:16 pm
Its insightful that nearly all of the states that allow corporal punishment of children were once slaves states.Hitting children relates to property rights issues- the idea that some groups of people have the right to own another person or group such as was the case with African Americans and women.
For those who are childrens’s rights advocates please join me in changing the law in this country as 24 more progressive countries have already done:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/america39s-behind–ban-the-physical-assault-of-children
Michelle
November 1st, 2009
3:23 pm
I have tried to post here several time and am wondering why my post wont go through
Michelle
November 1st, 2009
3:31 pm
Ok.
The corporal punishment of children relates to human as property issues. It is very insightful that almost all of the states allowing corporal punishment of children are former slave states. African Americans were considered inferior and demanded physical punishment by their slave-masters. Women were also considered the inferior sex and men were always to hit them to keep them submissive. Now, this is currently a very rights centered society when it comes to adults. Minority rights, women’s rights, gay rights, voting rights, and on and on. Children remain the group that is permitted by US socirty to be treated as property.
Michelle
November 1st, 2009
3:36 pm
I have tarted a petition to ban corporal punishment of children in the US as 24 more progressive countries already have. That is also reminiscent of slavery. Other countries allowed race equality prior to the US. Those of who who are child advocates please join me in changing this as another poster put “barbaric” practice.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/america39s-behind–ban-the-physical-assault-of-children
☺
Michelle
November 1st, 2009
3:41 pm
I have started a petition to ban the corporal punishment of children as one poster here called “barbaric”. The site wont let me post a link. However if you type this phrase in your browser
America’s Behind- Let’s Catch Up by Banning Corporal Punishment of Children
It will come up as a page that can be clicked on
For those that are child advocates, will you please sign with me. 24 More progressive countries have already banned the practice. That is also reminiscent to slavery in that other countries had race equality before the US did.
Michelle
November 1st, 2009
8:43 pm
Sorry for the repeated posts. There was not a post “success” message-After hours, no posts had shown up.
Thanks for understanding!☺
J4A
November 2nd, 2009
8:58 am
Thank you- AJC/Maureen for giving families and children a “voice” on this crucial topic of CP in our schools.
Jimmy
August 8th, 2010
3:17 am
I think school paddlings have been abusive in the past. As a senior, I was paddled with two other guys. We had to bend over, one at a time, and take three swats on the fanny. It was painful.