Middle Ages in Missouri: Schoolboy beatings with paddles are back

In life everything is possible, but who would have thought that the corporal punishment of students will return to the 21st century?

The school district Cassville, Missouri announced Tuesday that it is going to implement a new policy in which students can be punished with paddle strokes, according to the USA Today newspaper. School Division Superintendent Merlin Johnson said parents were notified of the board’s approval of the policy in June. Written permission from a student’s family will be required before such a method is used “when other means of discipline have failed, and when the principal approves it then only ‘at reasonable levels”.

The policy indicates that “slapping the buttocks with a paddle” is the only form of corporal punishment allowed and, if used, will be administered by the school principal in the presence of a witness, but not in front of classmates. Johnson said the number of hits can depend on the student’s age with older kids “getting up to three hits, and younger kids getting one or two.”

“When it becomes necessary to use corporal punishment, it will be applied in such a way that there is no possibility of physical injury or harm” he assured. “Hitting a student in the head or face not allowed”.

And Johnson claims the response among parents with children in the Cassville school district has been overwhelmingly positive. “We’ve had people really thank us for it,” he said. “Surprisingly, social media would be surprised to hear us say these things, but the majority of people I’ve met have been supportive,” he claimed.

School corporal punishment was ruled constitutional by the US Supreme Court in 1977. The decision essentially left it up to the states to retain or abolish this form of punishment, and Missouri was one of the states that chose to retain it.

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