HEPHZIBAH, Ga. (WSVN) — A charter school in Georgia is bringing back a controversial method of discipline for students.
Parents of students at the Georgia School for Innovation and the Classics received a letter and consent form from administrators last week, asking for permission to hit their children with a wooden paddle.
The school, which educates students from Kindergarten through ninth grade, will use corporal punishment for a student’s third offense.
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“There was a time where corporal punishment was kind of the norm in school and you didn’t have the problems that you have,” Superintendent Jody Boulineau told WRDW.
The form says students will be taken to an office behind closed doors and spanked on the buttocks no more than three times.
Boulineau says the school has so far received more than 100 of the forms back from parents, a third of whom gave them consent to paddle their kids.
Parents who do not consent to paddling must agree to up to five days of suspension for their children instead, the Associated Press reports.
Boulineau says he doesn’t believe the punishment will be used often, noting the threat of it is a good deterrent for bad behavior.
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