Friday, May 22, 2009

TX: DeSoto mom protests paddling of 12-year-old son at school

08:14 AM CDT on Friday, May 22, 2009
From Staff Reports
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/052309dnmetdesoto.63d0099.html
A DeSoto mom is upset that a school official paddled her 12-year-old son so severely that she said the punishment left large red and purple bruises on his buttocks, KXAS-TV has reported.

Noemi Arevalo says she never gave permission for the paddling and had instead requested to speak to the principal. When her son Jose Flores came home from school that day, she said the injuries were so severe that she took her son to the doctor and called police, the television station reported.

“I couldn't believe it, that they did that to him in school," Arevalo said.

A McCowan Middle School student, Jose, said he was caught shooting rubber bands in class last week and was asked if he wanted to be paddled or suspended.

"They asked me what I wanted and I said, 'Swats,' but they never asked my mom,” Flores told the television station. Flores said he was paddled four times.

"I kept on trying to turn around,” he said. “I was crying. And he was like, 'If you don't turn around and let me do the last one, I'm going to have to do it all over again.'"

The DeSoto Independent School District told the television station that the mother and son chose corporal punishment, and that a second school staffer observed the paddling. "The corporal punishment was administered in accordance with district policy," the DeSoto ISD said in a written statement.

DeSoto police could not be immediately reached for comment this morning.

"I'm upset because if I was the one doing that to him, I'd be arrested," Arevalo said.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Citizens should demand that DeSoto ISD apologize to Jose Flores, 12, a student at McCowan Middle school who was badly bruised from a paddling. Hitting school children with boards in the name of discipline is legalized child abuse. The superintendent and trustees should be charged with felonious physical child abuse for allowing this child abuse to happen. 29 states have put away the paddles and Texas should do it too.
Jimmy Dunne, People Opposed to Paddling Students, Houston 281.584.9707 www.nospankingzone.org