Students at a Texas school district could face discipline in the form of paddling this upcoming school year after officials approved new measures for corporal punishment earlier this week.
Three Rivers Independent School District in South Texas approved a new system Tuesday that permits school administrators to administer paddlings with a witness of the opposite sex present.
“The Campus Behavior Coordinator and/or the Principal are the only individuals allowed to administer this disciplinary management technique, based on their discretion, and the student will be given one paddling for his/her infractions,” the policy reads.
Parents do have the right to exempt their child from paddling by providing a written statement to school administrators. The policy also gives district personnel the discretion of whether or not to invoke paddling even if parents request that method be used on their student.
Corporal punishment remains legal in 19 states, primarily in the South, Southwest, and Midwest. Texas ranks second, just behind Mississippi, among states that spank their students the most. Nationwide, 31 states and the District of Columbia have banned the practice.
However, the 1977 Supreme Court case Ingraham v. Wright established that spanking does not infringe upon student’s Eighth Amendment rights protecting against “cruel and unusual punishment,” or their 14th Amendment due process rights.
The most recent data from the Department of Education found 167,000 students received physical punishment in the 2011-12 school year, and that Mississippi and Texas accounted for over a quarter of reported cases.
