Corporal Punishment May Not Take A Beating This Session Bills To Allow Schools, Parents To Spank Kids May Slide Through Conservative Legislature

Advocates of spanking in public schools will try again this year to win legislative permission to use corporal punishment, and the Legislature’s conservative tilt gives them a better chance than usual.

In addition, the House is considering a bill that would give parents the clear right to spank their children provided it was confined to the buttocks and caused no “medically significant injury as determined by a medical doctor.”

The school spanking measures, HB1690 and SB5220, follow passage a few years ago of a law barring corporal punishment in public schools.

That law’s main backer, Rep. Grace Cole, D-Seattle, said Thursday she is “very unhappy that this issue is coming back before us.”

“We going back to the Dark Ages, wanting to restore this barbaric practice in the schools,” Cole said.

But others, including some Democrats, feel otherwise. And with a big majority of conservative Republicans in the House and only a one-vote Democratic majority in the Senate, several lawmakers say spanking may make a comeback.

Their interest in restoring the paddle in public schools comes at a time when some other states are looking at using paddlings instead of prison sentences for some young offenders.

“We haven’t considered that yet,” said Sen. Brad Owen, D-Shelton, one of several Senate swing votes who would favor school paddling. He and fellow Democratic Sen. Jim Hargrove of Hoquiam said they would favor a spanking law if there were guidelines on how corporal punishment was applied.

“I like the idea that parents must first give authorization that spanking can be used on their child,” Hargrove said. “I think that would wipe out any opposition in this chamber.”

“We’re not talking about removing fingers and arms. We’re talking about spanking. For the older kids, we talking about using possibly a switch or something that won’t lacerate,” Hargrove said.

Sen. Alex Deccio, R-Yakima, sponsor of the Senate bill, said, “I really want to get some discussion going about this. We seem to have lost the ability even to talk about what we can do” to better control misbehavior in schools.

The House is expected to pass its school spanking measure easily.

HB1608, sponsored by Rep. Bill Backlund, R-Redmond, would allow parents to spank a child on the buttocks if it causes no “medically significant injury.”

“It is a reasonable form of discipline, and it is not illegal,” he said.