Maryland bans spanking children at private schools, day cares

As a young teacher, Tara Ebersole trembled whenever she reached for the flat wooden paddle she was supposed to use to discipline students in her junior high school classroom in east Tennessee. Even then, in 1980, she could hardly believe corporal punishment was still expected in public schools.

“I shook every time I put a paddle in my hand,” she recalled. “For me, philosophically, intentionally causing pain to another person is not how you can guide and teach them.”

Ebersole soon left that job, returning to where she grew up, in Maryland. Now, four decades later, she has helped end a practice that has weighed on her for years – inspiring lawmakers to expand a ban on corporal punishment in her home state’s schools.

Since 1993, Maryland has forbidden the practice in public schools. Ebersole pushed for a bill to extend it to private and parochial schools and child-care homes and centers. It sailed through the legislature in spring and was signed by Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) in May. It took effect July 1.

“I’d like to believe that it could be a deterrent to somebody who may have done it in the past,” said the longtime educator, pointing out she had heard anecdotal accounts of children being roughed up or physically disciplined at nonpublic schools. There is no data on prevalence of such incidents.

Corporal punishment in public schools has gained attention nationally in recent years, with a steady drumbeat of critics calling for it to end.

Federal and state data on its use suggest it is declining. The Biden administration in March urged education leaders across the country to abandon the practice.

In Maryland, Ebersole had an uncommon advantage in her quest: Her husband is Del. Eric Ebersole (D). The couple met as teachers at Wilde Lake High School in Howard County. “He was math, and I was science,” she said. In 2015, after more than three decades as a teacher, Eric was sworn into Maryland’s House of Delegates, where he has focused on education.

Del. Ebersole, who represents the Catonsville area in Baltimore County, shared his wife’s views on the issue and sponsored a corporal punishment bill. He said the bill drew few objections from fellow lawmakers, many of whom were surprised about the loopholes. “We didn’t have any data or statistics that we relied on for this bill,” he said. “We just thought, ‘It might be a problem. It sounds like it is. Let’s make sure it’s not.’”

Support streamed in – from the Free State PTA, the Maryland Psychological Association, the Maryland Psychiatric Society, the Maryland State Child Care Association, the Maryland Family Network, Disability Rights Maryland and other organizations.

“Corporal punishment not only fails as a behavioral mechanism, but also causes significant physical and mental harm to children,” said Christian Gobel, of the Maryland State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, in written testimony.

At public hearings on the bill – in February and March – Tara Ebersole recalled what it was like at her Tennessee school.

“If a student came to class late, I was expected to take a two-foot long wooden paddle [and] have the student stand in the hallway, bent over with their hands on the lockers, while I gave them one ‘lick,’” she told lawmakers at the session. “If a board of this size were used to strike someone in any other situation, it would constitute assault.”

As the House hearing concluded, Del. Jason C. Buckel (R) called the proposal a “no brainer” that seemed “a pretty straightforward thing.” Critics of the bill did not testify at the House or Senate hearings. But Alan Lang, a resident of Pasadena, Md., opposed the new ban.

Lang said in an interview that when his now-grown son briefly attended a private Baptist school, around 1999 or 2000, the family understood that corporal punishment was a possibility and signed off on it. “If he did something that they thought warranted it, we would have supported it,” he said.

Lang said the state is over-involved in decisions that should be left to individuals. Especially in private religious schools, he said, “that should be something between the parents and the school,” he said, unless the practice is abused.

According to state data, more than 800 religious and private schools and over 400 nursery schools are located in Maryland. State officials say there are nearly 4,250 family child-care homes operating and more than 2,400 child-care centers.

Tara Ebersole said she has been thinking about her early experience with corporal punishment most of her career, even though she managed mostly to avoid it while teaching in Tennessee. After she retired from the Community College of Baltimore County, where she was a biology professor, she decided to explore the topic in a novel as she taught part-time.

What she discovered in her research shocked her: More than 15 states still allow corporal punishment. Eventually she dug into Maryland’s law, finding loopholes on private schools. The new law is in line with existing regulations that forbid “injurious treatment” of children, including shaking, hitting and spanking, in child care centers.

Several groups representing nonpublic schools said the change would not affect them.

The Maryland Catholic Conference did not take a position on the matter because the dioceses’ Catholic school policies already ban corporal punishment in schools, said spokeswoman Susan Gibbs.

Amy McNamer, executive director of the Association of Independent Schools of Greater Washington, said she believed it was “a nonissue” for her members, too. “All of our schools are accredited for health and safety standards, and allowing any type of corporal punishment would certainly violate those standards,” she said in an email.

Under the new law, nonpublic schools cannot be certified by the state unless they have policies that ban corporal punishment.

Tara Ebersole said her work on the bill is among the highlights of her life. “I got to take that information and really use it to make a difference,” she said. Looking back, she said, “I found it traumatic for me as a teacher to administer, as it was for the students who were receiving it.”