My dad said the same thing.
You were lucky; the principal at my elementary school was a friend of my dad, so there was no way he wouldn’t find out.
In junior high, my stepmother taught at the same school. It was like getting a report card every day.
They had paddling there. It was done out in the hallway, while classes were in session. It was good and loud. The student who got it usually just came back in afterward looking really embarrassed.
It was really, really easy to avoid being paddled, you had to go pretty far over the line to get it.