Free Republic

The federal government has cast a spotlight on corporal punishment in schools this year. Updated statistics came out this summer, and Education Secretary John B. King Jr. chose as one of his final moves to urge Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, Education Superintendent John White and the leaders of 21 other states to ban paddling Nov. 22. Though all districts in metro New Orleans have abolished the practice, it's still strikingly common statewide: More than 1 in 5 Louisiana schools paddled students in the 2013-14 school year, according to federal data.Look up the schools in our database.Nationally, corporal punishment is...

Education Secretary John B. King Jr. is urging governors and school leaders in states that allow student paddling to end a practice he said would be considered “criminal assault or battery” against an adult. King released a letter Tuesday asking leaders to replace corporal punishment with less punitive, more supportive disciplinary practices that he said work better against bad behavior. More than 110,000 students, including disproportionate numbers of black and disabled students, were subjected to paddling or a similar punishment in the 2013-14 school year, said King, citing the Education Department’s Civil Rights Data Collection. Corporal punishment is legal in...

Beaumont police say a teacher was arrested Friday after video on Twitter showed her slapping a student on the head. [Snip] Hastings was arrested and charged with assault. She has been released on bail at this time. Ozen High School has placed Hastings on administrative leave, and the school district has released this statement:

A Perth man faces extradition to the United States after being considered "a big part" in the brutal spanking torture of two underage girls that was recorded by a disgraced Florida policewoman. Christopher Donald Lobban, 53, of Mullaloo is alleged to be the online boyfriend of Polk County Sherriff's detention deputy Robyn Leigh Pagoria, after meeting her on a fetish website. The 45-year-old divorcee, who served 20 years in the marines, has been accused of abusing her position over the girls - described as being aged between 10 and 18 – by subjecting them to multiple torture sessions at her...

A female Florida sheriff's deputy handcuffed naked girls to a desk, spanked them with a leather paddle and sent the seamy homemade videos to a boyfriend she met on a fetish web site, authorities said. Robin Leigh Pagoria, 45, subjected her two victims - described as girls between the ages of 10 and 18 - to multiple torture sessions, authorities said. "There aren't words to describe my anger with her," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told the Orlando Sentinel, adding that the arrest "came out of nowhere." Pagoria, a divorced Marine veteran, shackled the girls' wrists and ankles to a...

MUSKEGON — A Muskegon man admitted in a Muskegon Chronicle interview Monday that he paddled a 15-year-old foreign exchange student from South Korea on his bare bottom, made him walk naked in front of him and watched the boy shower — but says it was all for the boy’s own good. “He was very shy and he expressed a concern about walking around the locker room nude at the gym,” said Richard William Mink, who hosted the boy at his home from August to December 2010. “I had him practice. I had him walk back and forth nude in the...

Should paddling be allowed in schools? Yes no

Michelle Obama: It’s Tough To Stay Grounded First lady looks back at her personal challenges of the past year Jan. 19, 2010 Every once in a while Michelle Obama checks in with old friends. "Do you still recognize me?" she'll ask. "Do I still feel like Michelle?" In the past year, the first lady's name has popped up on Forbes' "most powerful women" list, People's "most beautiful" list, Time's "most influential" list, Vanity Fair's "international best-dressed" list, Barbara Walters' "most fascinating" list. And so on. Her every word, move, bite, gesture, dress and shoe has been analyzed and second-guessed. Is...

Authorities are investigating allegations that now-suspended Mobile County Circuit Judge Herman Thomas periodically removed prisoners from Mobile County Metro Jail and spanked them in a room at the courthouse, according to courthouse sources involved in the inquiry. Once inside the room, according to the sources, the judge would ask the young men to drop their pants and prepare to be spanked with what they described as a wooden or fraternity-like paddle. These new allegations arise as Thomas prepares for an Oct. 29 ethics trial in Montgomery that could permanently remove him from the bench. When contacted by telephone Tuesday by...

FORT WORTH -- She says the paddlings began when she was in the sixth grade. Her family's pastor, the Rev. Sherman Clifton Allen, would order her to grab her ankles, she said, and he paddled her until her bottom turned purple. The woman, now 41, says she was punished if Allen was told that her room was messy, that she had made a bad grade or that she had committed some other infraction. In the beginning, the woman said, the pastor made her pull her dress tight. Later, he ordered her to drop her panties. Finally, she said he made...

A woman who says she was spanked with a pingpong paddle is the latest person to file charges against a Baptist preacher in Culpeper. Laura Beth Scott, 26, charged the Rev. Charles V. Shifflett with assault "with the intent to maim, disfigure, disable or kill." It is the fifth charge brought this year against the former pastor of Calvary Baptist Church. All are related to Shifflett's former position as headmaster of the Calvary Baptist Academy, which was part of the church's outreach program. Shifflett, who is no longer with the church, turned himself in about 9:30 a.m. yesterday and was...

FORT WORTH - She believed he was a prophet, a man who received instructions from God. Because of that, Davina Kelly said, she thought the punishment administered by the Rev. Sherman Clifton Allen was justified. Kelly said Allen began paddling her -- first with pants on, and later with them off -- for not reading assigned Scriptures or for disobeying orders. Later, she said, Allen made her exercise to the point of exhaustion, running laps around the church sanctuary or doing lunges across the living room of his Mansfield home. Finally, she said, the abuse turned sexual. "There are certain...

Terry Looper Corporal punishment hasn't been used at Cascade High School for more than a decade, according to the principal. Meanwhile, paddling "has its place" at Shelbyville Central High School, the principal said this week, but he doesn't do it and the only instances of paddling there have been in the vocational part of the school. Cascade Principal Terry Looper and Central Principal Don Embry spoke about corporal punishment on Wednesday and Thursday on a condition that it be made clear: They're not commenting on what's alleged at Community High School. "Child abuse" is what a Smyrna doctor wrote as...

A Unionville mother and father are complaining about the paddling of their 14-year-old son, allegedly by Community High School's assistant principal, and they've taken their concerns to the superintendent of schools, the sheriff's department and have released their boy's medical records showing bruises and swelling at his tailbone. "Diagnosis: Child Abuse," is a notation in the physician's notes. Community High School Principal Robert Ralston declined comment and deferred questions to Bedford County Schools' Central Office where Superintendent Ed Gray said he's in the middle with responsibilities to protect students' as well as employees' rights. To avoid duplication of efforts, Gray...

18-year-old student sues over paddling The Associated Press When Jessica Serafin enrolled in a charter high school, her mother signed a form allowing administrators to paddle her as punishment. But by the time a summer school principal paddled her last June, Serafin was already 18 and legally an adult. Now she´s suing the School of Excellence in Education, San Antonio´s largest charter school, alleging it was wrong for the principal to paddle an adult student without her consent. She says the beating she received for leaving campus to get breakfast was so severe she had to go to the emergency...

ABC13 Eyewitness News (10/14/03) — A preschool teacher at a Houston charter school is facing allegations that she paddled a child. The incident allegedly happened Friday at Varnett Charter School in southwest Houston. Parents gathered Tuesday to support the woman who has been suspended with pay. "There has been no formative action taken other than the teacher has been suspended with pay pending the completion of the investigation," said school superintendent Annette Cluff. "It's hard to find a good teacher," said parent Lesa Andrepont. "Since we have a good teacher, let's try to support her." School officials have not...