When Alex Young was in the seventh grade, he read an article about how Kentucky schools still had cases of corporal punishment.
Young, now a junior studying political science and government at Notre Dame, was researching policy proposals for his Kentucky Youth Assembly’s mock government conference at the time.
“Kids were still being paddled in schools,” he recalled learning. “That just blew my mind.”
The Louisvillian immediately started advocating outside KYA for a change in state law to prevent corporal punishment in schools.
This school year, all Kentucky school districts have policies against corporal punishment in place, according to Jill Seyfred, the executive director of the nonprofit Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky. This is the first full year for such uniform policies, she said.
During the 2017-2018 school year, there were 452 incidents of corporal punishment in Kentucky schools, according to Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky data. Now, the organization believes that’s down to no cases of what it called “school-sanctioned violence in the archaic form of paddling.”
Even with the progress, advocates for children say Kentucky’s legislature should enact a statewide ban on the use of corporal punishment in schools.
“Not that school board policies don’t have teeth, but state law has more teeth,” said Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates.
State school board acts
The Kentucky Board of Education adopted a corporal punishment regulation in 2022, said Jennifer Ginn, director of communications for the Kentucky Department of Education.
“Under the regulation, school boards were required to adopt a policy that either prohibited corporal punishment or detailed the conditions for when and how corporal punishment could be deployed in the district,” said Ginn. “Consequences for violating local policy are determined at the local level.”
Brooks, of Kentucky Youth Advocates, said having such policies in place is an important step, though “to think that no paddle is ever swung in Kentucky is aspirational, but inaccurate.”
“It’s one thing to pass a policy,” he said, “and it’s another thing for it to be implemented with fidelity.”
He does believe that cases are “reduced” thanks to these policies, but “I don’t think we need to delude ourselves into thinking it doesn’t happen, because it does.”
Corporal punishment ‘traumatic’ and ‘not effective’
Corporal punishment is physical punishment that can refer to “hitting, slapping, spanking, shaking, punching, kicking, choking, electric shock, confinement in small spaces, excessive exercise and fixed postures for long periods,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice. “Instruments used in corporal punishment include leather straps, switches, baseball bats and fists.”
Child wellbeing advocates say such practices aren’t effective at disciplining children and, furthermore, cause harm.
“I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that that’s a traumatic experience,” Brooks said. “An adult takes an inanimate object and smacks you.” The practice comes down to “a person in power … is using an object to physically hurt you.”
Children with learning and developmental disabilities and those from other vulnerable populations are more likely to be subjected to corporal punishment, Seyfred said.
But, she said, “for Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky, we always feel that there are better ways of dealing with the situation than hitting a child.”
Brooks agreed, saying corporal punishment teaches children the “wrong lesson:” that is, to handle their problems with violent behaviors.
And, he said, it has “always been a discriminatory practice.”
“Corporal punishment is disproportionately used on more vulnerable populations, whether that’s age, gender, disabilities,” he said. “Even when corporal punishment was popular, I didn’t hear a lot of cases where an assistant principal spanked the starting linebacker.”
Now that all districts have taken a stand against corporal punishment, Brooks said, it would be “logical” for the General Assembly to pass a law banning it.
“I’ve always found the practice ineffective, unethical and unwise,” said Brooks.
Young, who now sits on the board of the United States Alliance to End the Hitting of Children, agreed that Kentucky needs a statewide ban on corporal punishment enacted by the General Assembly.
He said it’s key for educators to “(build) a safe, trusted environment where students feel like they can seek help” and find “discipline resolutions that don’t break down relationships, but rather empower students to make better decisions in the future.”
Seyfred said it’s also “not conducive to them learning in school.”
“From a child abuse and neglect perspective, what we are mindful of is that if a child comes to school from an environment that is abusive, and then they are hit at school in a place or an institution that should be safe for them and where they’re trying to learn, it’s actually having the opposite effect,” she said.
Legislative efforts to end practice
Rep. Steven Riley, R-Glasgow, has filed bills to ban corporal punishment going back to 2018. During the 2022 legislative session, his House Bill 119 — which had bipartisan support — would have banned school employees from using corporal punishment, including paddling, striking, shaking or spanking children.
Riley’s bills never made much headway in the legislature, but Seyfred said his advocacy helped change public opinion on corporal punishment and set the stage for the state Board of Education to begin requiring local districts to scrutinize the practice.
In a Friday statement, Riley said he is “incredibly grateful to see every school district in our state adopting policies to end corporal punishment.”
“This milestone underscores our collective commitment to creating learning environments where students can thrive without fear of physical harm,” he said. “These practices were antiquated and outdated when I was in school, and we know they simply don’t work at resolving behavioral problems.”
“The legislature has given school districts the resources they need to address behavioral issues,” he said. “Now, district leadership must send a clear message that supports not only educators, but the very students who come to school every day to learn and grow.”
This article is republished under a Creative Commons license from Kentucky Lantern, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on Facebook and Twitter.
Sarah Ladd is a Louisville-based journalist and Kentuckian. She has covered everything from crime to higher education. In 2020, she started reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic and has covered health ever since.