Paddling students is still legal in a third of the country. Kentucky legislators want to ban it.
As a 10th-grader in Jefferson County, Ky., Tina was caught cutting the lunch line. She would be disciplined, a school official told her, but he gave her a choice: detention or two “licks,” a sugarcoated term for two strikes with a wooden paddle.
A male faculty member brought the teen, who was dressed in a cheerleading uniform, into an office and spanked her bottom with a paddle.
Tina Bojanowski’s memory was made more than 30 years ago, yet in a handful of states — including Kentucky — it seems the times have not changed, as the practice is still legal there. Now a member of the state legislature, Rep. Tina Bojanowski (D) is supporting a bill to prohibit corporal punishment.
“When someone is doing something wrong, the most important thing is to change their behavior. There are more effective measures to change students’ behavior than striking them,” Riley, a former high school principal, told The Washington Post.
There’s been a national downward trend in corporal punishment in schools, according to research by Kids Count Data Center. In 2016, the Obama administration called for an end to the practice in all states and school districts. Thirty-one states have barred the practice, but 19 still permit it, Riley said.
In Kentucky, 17 school districts permit corporal punishment. According to research done by the Kids Count Data Center, during the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 452 reported instances of such punishment in the state.
Of those 17 districts, five accounted for 85 percent of cases. Bell County reported 129 incidents, the highest in Kentucky for the academic year. Clinton County, the second highest, reported 128 incidents, a figure more than seven times the 17 incidents reported during 2016-17. Neither county schools superintendent responded to The Post for comment.
Pulaski and Harlan counties reported increases in instances of corporal punishment, to 67 and 30 cases, respectively.
Riley presented the legislation to the state House Education Committee earlier in February, but the bill was not voted on. Similar bills were also introduced in 2017 and 2018 but not passed.
The Kentucky school districts that permit paddling are predominantly in rural areas, according to Riley. Their legislators who oppose the bill argue they want to protect against government overreach. “They say that discipline should be left to local school board, not state government,” Riley said.
With eight days left in the legislative session, Riley said, H.B. 202 is unlikely to be voted on imminently. But, he added, “I’m going to keep proposing until it gets passed."