A SCHOOL in the United States has introduced a policy hitting kids with a wooden bat as a form of punishment – and the parents approve of it.
The Georgia School for Innovation and the Classics (GSIC) in Hephzibah, south of Augusta, which takes pupils aged five to 15, sent out consent forms and so far, a third of parents have given consent.
The school wants to be able to punish misbehaving pupils by hitting them with a wooden bat – or “paddling” – as a form of discipline.
GSIC is a charter school meaning that while it is publicly funded it is was independently set up by teachers and parents under an agreement with the local authority.
Under the school’s conditions any child receiving the punishment will be taken to a private room and with their hands on either their knees or a piece of furniture with be “struck on the buttocks” no more than three times.
The school’s head Jody Boulineau told WRDW-TV: “In this school, we take discipline very seriously.
"There was a time where corporal punishment was kind of the norm in school and you didn't have the problems that you have.
"It's just one more tool that we have in our disciplinary toolbox that we can use.”
He added: "There's no obligation, it's not required. A parent can either give consent for us to use that as a disciplinary measure or they can deny consent.”
So far, from receiving more than 100 consent forms back, Boulineau said there had been a positive response from the parents.
"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',” Boulineau said.
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"I honestly feel like it's something that's not going to be used very often. Sometimes it's just kind of the threat of it being there becomes a deterrent in itself."
Smacking school children is legal in Georgia and 19 other states but is rare for a school to actually have a policy on it.
Pupils who misbehave and whose parents do not give consent will be suspended as an alternative.
In the 2015-2016 school year there were 9,713 incidents of pupils being “paddled” in Georgia, according to the Department of Education.
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