A Missouri school district is bringing back corporal punishment as a discipline option for students.
The Cassville School District told NBC affiliate KY3 that the policy is opt-in only and the change was the result of a survey sent to staff, student and parents in May.
“One of the suggestions that came out was concerns about student discipline,” Superintendent Dr. Merlyn Johnson told KY3.
“So we reacted by implementing several different strategies, corporal punishment being one of them.”
The change will give principals one more option for discipline, acting as a last resort before using more serious punishments such as suspension, Johnson told KY3.
The corporal punishment option will only be used for students whose parents opt in.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that corporal punishment is constitutional, leaving it up to states whether to allow it.
Missouri is one of 19 states where school corporal punishment is legal.
Madison Horner with KY3 contributed to this story.
They did in my day(50’s-60’s) and I turned out OK.
One day I received a call from my 15 year old son’s principal asking me to come to the school to observe the swat he was about to receive. I told him that I trusted him for my son’s education and that was part of it. I then asked him to give the boy a swat from me and to let him know there would be more when he got home. My son is nearly 50 now has taught, been a principal and now takes care of audio/video in a large school district. I AM very proud of him!!
that sounds like old and old times I lived thru as I was in school from the 50s-60s and that’s how it was back then and all the family’s were the same but in the I think it was in the 80s or so it all changed along with the times the beetles helped changed some of that and new politicians too and then new laws and we all changed too