BILL TARGETS PADDLING

A paddle battle may be brewing in Jefferson City as legislators consider whether to ban corporal punishment from public schools.

Sen. Joe Moseley, D-Columbia, has introduced a bill that would outlaw corporal punishment in public schools. Moseley said 23 states have outlawed spanking in schools.

Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Scott City schools allow paddling as a punishment, but it is rarely used.

If the bill became law, it would have little affect on discipline at the schools, but Scott City and Jackson administrators said they would hate to see the option taken away.

Scott City Superintendent Douglas Berry opposes changing the law.

"My thought is that it should be left up to the local school districts as it is now," he said.

"We use it as a last resort," he said. "But it still is an option. I think having it as an option probably holds down the number of times we have to actually use it."

Jackson assistant superintendent Fred Jones said, "I think building principals need a lot of different tools to manage their schools. Some building principals do not ever believe it's apporpriate. Some think there is a place for it, as tool of last resort."

The school has guidelines when paddling takes place.

"We never do it in a classroom before the other students and it can never be done in anger," Jones said.

A witness must be present and parents are contacted. Sometimes parents are present.

"We do everything we can prior to paddling," Jones said. "But it works for some situations."

Cape Girardeau's director of curriculum and instruction, Dr. Richard Bollwerk, said that because corporal punishment is legal, most school districts, including Cape Girardeau, have a policy that allows spankings.

But, he said, paddling is almost never used.

Three years ago Cape Girardeau principals decided spanking wasn't an effective discipline.

"But it has pretty much been eliminated," Bollwerk said.

Some elementary principals would never paddle. Others might, given the right set of circumstances, he said.

"We have some cases when a parent says, `I want my child spanked,'" Bollwerk said. "If we think it will work, a principal might say OK."

Discipline options include a range of punishments starting with a conference with the student and ending with expulsion from school.

Corporal punishment is at the same level as in-school suspension or out-of-school suspension.

Corporal punishment is defined as willfully inflicting physical pain on a pupil, except when needed to quell a disturbance, confiscate a weapon or for self-defense. It is also known as paddling or spankings.