MS: 3 on Your Side Investigation - Corporal punishment

By Cheryl Lasseter - bio | email

Posted: Nov 05, 2009 6:18 PM ESTUpdated: Nov 06, 2009 3:22 AM EST

http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=11453537#

JACKSON, MS (WLBT) - Earlier this year, an 11-year-old student in Greenwood, Mississippi sued the LeFlore County School District after suffering deep bruising, and possible kidney damage, from a severe paddling at school.

Corporal punishment happens every day in our state. In fact, during the 2007 school year, Mississippi doled out 38,151 school spankings. We're number two in the country, just behind Texas, which charted more than 49,000.

Mississippi's American Civil Liberties Union opposes corporal punishment because there's no scientific data proving it works. State ACLU President Nsombi Lambright reminds parents they can sign a waiver prohibiting a school from paddling their child. But parents still need to be careful.

"We get calls from parents who have signed the waiver and their kids still get beaten inside these schools. They ask us to provide legal representation for them," Lambright says. "But it's difficult because in these communities, the Department of Human Services will not investigate these cases, nor will the local police department. We also get those calls where... the child has been hurt so badly they attempted to stop the paddling, put their hand behind them, their wrist was fractured. A few years ago we got a call about a student hit in the head with a paddle," she says.

Were you paddled in your school days? How did it make you feel? 26-year-old Alanna Windham attended Enterprise School, a K-12 school in Lincoln County. She was paddled for a minor infraction when she was a high school senior.

"It hurt, it stung but that stopped me from misbehaving," she says. "I told my dad, he told me I deserved it, so if that's the punishment they chose, that's the punishment they chose."

A supporter of corporal punishment in schools, Windham plans to allow her daughter Laura to be spanked at school if the punishment fits the deed.

But some school districts believe spanking is not essential. Jackson Public Schools set the rod aside in the early 1990's. Soon, they will roll out a program called PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention and Support). It's an entire change of the school climate.

PBIS has already been used for six years at Poindexter Elementary. Appropriate behavior is taught in the classroom, everything from sitting quietly to walking in a line.

School counselor Leona Bishop says bad behavior is dealt with through a series of five steps. Referral to the principal's office is the 5th step.

"For students who are constantly referred, 2-3 referrals, they're moved to a tier 3," Bishop says. "We try to provide counseling, mentoring."

Rewards for good behavior are heaped on through fun programs and celebration days. Students are constantly recognized with their pictures on a wall in the auditorium.

"The first year we implemented it, we suspended 22. Since then, we've suspended three students each consecutive year," Bishop says.

PBIS will first be rolled out in Jackson middle schools. The program should be in all Jackson schools by July 2013.

MS: Student files suit over paddling; 2nd such suit against Leflore County Schools

October 23, 2009

http://www.sunherald.com/185/story/1694972.html

GREENWOOD, Miss. -- A school district in Leflore County has been hit with a lawsuit from a student alleging injuries from a paddling.

An 11-year-old is seeking $500,000 from the Greenwood Public School District in a suit filed in Leflore County Circuit Court.

The child's attorney said photographs show deep bruising on the then-10-year-old's buttocks and that he also suffered possible kidney damage.

Phone calls by The Greenwood Commonwealth for comment to Superintendent Margie Pulley and the schools' attorney, Richard Oakes, were not returned.

Last month, the guardian of a 6-year-old kindergartner filed a $500,000 lawsuit against the Leflore County School District for alleged paddlings.

Information from: The Greenwood Commonwealth, http://www.gwcommonwealth.com

MS: Spankings Common in Schools

For the full article, click the following link: http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20091019/NEWS/910190310/1001

Here is an excerpt:

The following school districts had the highest number of corporal punishment incidents during the 2008-09 school year.

DeSoto County 4,993

Greenwood 2,886

Scott County 2,793

South Panola 2,376

Lee County 1,707

Harrison County 1,702

Western Line 1,512

Benton County 1,511

Jones County 1,301

New Albany 1,249

Hinds 55

Madison 1,104

Rankin 742

Canton 11

Pearl uses corporal punishment but did not report any cases last year to the state Department of Education.

Clinton and Jackson public schools do not use corporal punishment.

Mississippi has one of the nation's highest rates of corporal punishment.

During the 2008-09 school year, there were 57,953 cases of corporal punishment in 110 of the state's 152 school districts, according to the state Department of Education. The number of incidents is a slight drop from 58,343 cases reported a year earlier but higher than the 47,727 cases reported in 2006-07.

Corporal punishment is "simply a tool in the toolbox," Kent said. "We can call parents, we can fuss at kids, we can detain them, we can suspend them, we can put them in ... detention, and we can paddle them."

Students are paddled for flagrant disrespect toward any one person, Kent said. Paddling could be a punishment for horseplay, tardiness and skipping class, he said.

In most school districts, more serious offenses - such as fighting - have stiffer consequences. Other punishments, including suspension or detention, are often used instead of corporal punishment.

School districts restrict the number of times a child can be hit and the size of the paddle used. Generally, students are hit about three times. Many district policies require an adult to witness the punishment.

"Corporal punishment is not a scientifically based process," Lambright said. There is no study that shows the physical punishment is effective, she said.

MS: Teacher arrested on abuse charges

Saturday, Feb. 14, 2009
By MARGARET BAKER - mbbaker@sunherald.com
http://www.sunherald.com/local/story/1140728.html

GULFPORT — North Gulfport 7th and 8th Grade teacher and basketball coach Catryna L. Martin has been arrested on charges accusing her of sex crimes against a former female student, Gulfport Police Chief Alan Weatherford said.

The 28-year-old science teacher was arrested Friday and charged with one count each of molestation and sexual battery of a 14-year-old girl while in a position of trust or authority.

Martin, the police chief said, is accused of committing the crimes at her home during the first week of February while she was supposed to be tutoring the girl.

The girl’s parents reported the alleged abuse to police, and Weatherford said the investigation that followed resulted in Martin’s arrest in the 12400 block of U.S. 49 on Friday.

Harrison County Justice Court Judge Gene Dedeaux set Martin’s total bond at $1 million.

Harrison County School Superintendent Henry Arledge said Saturday that Martin would not be able to return to school to teach classes or to coach basketball because he was suspending her employment, effective immediately. He said Martin would have the right to request a hearing before the Harrison County School Board to appeal the decision. Otherwise, he said the ruling stands, and she faces termination. If she’s convicted of the charges, Arledge said her license to teach in Mississippi would be revoked.

“I’m shocked,” Arledge said. “The public expects more of public employees than that. That kind of activity cannot and will not be tolerated in the school system, We just have to go forward at this point.”

Arledge said Martin had been teaching at the school for about three years and there had been no previous complaints lodged against her. The student in this case, he said, no longer attended Martin’s classes because she had advanced to another grade.

So far, Weatherford said, there are no other allegations against the teacher, though their investigation was continuing.

Martin is the second South Mississippi teacher, and second youth coach, to face felony charges for alleged sex crimes against minors in the last 13 months.

Rebecca Dawn Bogard, 28, was a science teacher at the Center for New Opportunities — the Biloxi School District’s alternative school — when she was arrested Jan. 18, 2008, and charged with one count each of exploitation of a child, touching of a child for lustful purposes and statutory rape. A Harrison County grand jury later indicted her on the charges.

She was suspended with pay and later resigned. She remains free today on $50,000 bond pending trial.

In an unrelated case involving minors, Edward Scott Yancey, 37, and former volunteer coach with the Long Beach Recreation League, is accused, among other things, of molesting two 10-year-old boys he had coached in the summer of 2008. Authorities seized eight computers and 300 discs from Yancey’s home that contained sexually explicit pictures of children.