This School Board Really Smarts Kids Who Are Up A Creek Can Choose The Paddle Over Suspension
Corporal punishment may be dying out in some schools, but paddling is staging a comeback in the Murtaugh School District.
Last year, the School Board directed Keith Adams, the new principal of the junior and senior high schools, to reduce the number of suspensions.
So Adams brought in his half-inch thick and 18 inches long paddle with 13 holes drilled into it to make it sting. Dozens of signatures of swatted kids cover it.
With a parent’s permission, a student facing detention or suspension can choose paddling instead. Adams said it is a good alternative to school policies calling for suspension after twice failing to obey a school authority.
Corporal punishment is legal in Idaho, but the Idaho Education Association teachers’ union and the American Civil Liberties Union oppose it, and the state Board of Education discourages it.
It’s legal, but rare, said Roger Hanshew, state supervisor of professional standards.
During the last school year, kids filed into Adams’ office, grabbed their ankles and received their punishment about 26 times, he said. Witnesses were present each time.
Most parents, teaching staff and students support him, Adams says.
At least one parent disagrees with paddling.
Debbie Pickett, who said her son Steven was paddled nine or 10 times last year, opposes the policy.
“I was totally against it, but my husband was not against it,” she said.
Murtaugh School Board Chairman Stuart Tolman said he backs Adams and said the practice is an attempt to appease parents who are calling for more discipline in the schools.
Suspensions do not work, he said.
“Give a kid a holiday, he has two days off and he goes down to the tanning booth and gets a good tan and has a good time.”
Murtaugh’s paddling practices has not gone unnoticed. Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union sent a critical letter to the district after a parent complained. It even sent witnesses to watch.
After that visit, the district started requiring kids to write what they had done wrong, and Adams started getting parental permission.
“If indeed they are having a parent sign and having a student sign, then we wouldn’t have a problem with it, although we wouldn’t think it was a good thing to do,” said Melva Patterson, assistant director of the Idaho branch of the ACLU.
Paddling works, Adams said. There were no suspensions at all last year.
Murtaugh is not the only school allowing paddling. Filer, Valley and the Twin Falls school districts all allow schools to spank kids. The difference is that the others have not used the policy for years.
xxxx Corporal punishment in schools Corporal punishment is legal in Idaho, but the Idaho Education Association teachers’ union and the American Civil Liberties Union oppose it, and the state Board of Education discourages it. It’s legal, but rare, said Roger Hanshew, state supervisor of professional standards. In addition to the Murtaugh School District, Filer, Valley and the Twin Falls districts all allow schools to spank kids. But these districts have not used the policy for years.