Corporal punishment makes for better-behaved students, school official says.
A charter school in Georgia has asked parents for permission to paddle their children.
"In this school, we take discipline very seriously," Jody Boulineau, superintendent of the Georgia School for Innovation and the Classics, told WRDW-TV.
Under the new policy, children who rack up three disciplinary strikes will get struck with a wooden paddle, provided their parents have signed a form recently sent home with students at the kindergarten-through-ninth grade institution.
"There was a time where corporal punishment was kind of the norm in school and you didn't have the problems that you have,” Boulineau said.
The form described the punishment as something that will be administered behind closed doors. "The student will place their hands on their knees or piece of furniture and will be struck on the buttocks with a paddle," the consent document said.
The superintendent said parents' reactions to the memo varied.
"I've heard, 'Great, it's about time, 'We're so glad that this is happening again,' 'They should've never taken it out of schools' — all the way to, 'Oh my goodness, I can't believe you are doing that,'" he said.
Corporal punishment is legal in Georgia and 19 other states, but schools seldom use it.
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