School Spankings Still Allowed In 19 States

Spanking Still Allowed At Some Florida Schools

While punishing students by spanking them with paddles at school seems like a scene from Little House on the Prairie , it's still a reality for students in 19 states across the U.S., an NPR report reveals.

Whether it's a wooden paddle or fiberglass board, students in states like Florida endure the punishments on a daily basis, according to the Center for Effective Discipline.

"I been getting them since about first grade," Lucas Mixon, a junior at Holmes County High School in Bonifay, Fla, told NPR. "It's just regular. They tell you to put your hands up on the desk and how many swats you're going to get."

Cole Long, a senior at the school told NPR that one school official is particularly aggressive.

"The assistant principal, he hurts," Long says. "I've had it plenty of times from him and he gives it to us a little more."

Long said, however, that he doesn't think the policy should change -- saying it teaches students respect.

Last year Chris Petrasek, a 48-year-old teacher, faced charges of assault and battery after he spanked three students at Oakridge Middle School in Lake Wylie, S.C.

The students told the Associated Press they recieved the punishment for earning bad grades and talking out of turn.

The St. John's Military School in Salina, Kan., doesn't just permit corporal punishment for students, it employs upperclassmen to carry it out.

The punishments have allegedly spanned further than a paddle spanking, and the school now faces a lawsuit for claims that the students, or "Disciplinarians" bound, gagged, and urniated on the students they were punishing.

According to NPR, the most recent data on school spankings is from 2006, which show that 223,190 students endured coporal punishment -- 3,661 of them in Florida.

To see a list of states who allow corporal punishment in schools, click over to the Center for Effective Discipline's website.

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