W. Virginia Clings to School Spankings Practice

Despite thickets of red tape woven by the Legislature, hundreds of West Virginia schoolchildren continue to be spanked in a state that clings to a “spare the rod and spoil the child” philosophy.

“We were hoping to make the law so technical they would give up,” said state Delegate Sondra Lucht, a Berkeley County school psychologist and paddling opponent.

“Anything we can do to encumber that regulation, we will,” said Maggie Beller, state executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Practice Abandoned

In many parts of the nation, spanking isn’t even debated anymore, said Dr. Irwin Hyman of Temple University’s National Center for the Study of Corporal Punishment and Alternatives in Schools. “It’s been a slow, steady giving-up of paddling in the Western World,” he said.

West Virginia’s 1983 state spanking law, which Hyman said is among the most detailed in the nation, testifies to the tenacity of advocates on both sides.

The law provides for a minimum 12-hour waiting period between the misbehavior and the time a young scholar’s seat is swatted by an “open hand or paddle,” witnessed by another adult professional employee but not in the sight of another student.

Another provision, frequently referred to as the “designated hitter rule,” requires principals or designated staffers to do the spanking.

Students Told of Rules

The law also sets these requirements:

--Pupils must be informed of the rules and regulations of the school, be told which rules they violated and be given a chance to explain why they violated them.

--Parents must be contacted at least 12 hours before a scheduled paddling and informed of the child’s misbehavior.

--A written report on the child’s misbehavior must be filed in the school office within 24 hours of the incident.

--Within three days after the paddling, parents must be informed in writing.

--Corporal punishment is not permitted if the student is handicapped, mentally disturbed or suffering from a medical condition which would be aggravated by paddling.

Elnora Pepper, public relations director for the West Virginia Board of Education, says there are no reliable figures on how many students have been spanked under the new law.

However, a study in the Kanawha County school system showed that 211 elementary and junior high school students were paddled in the 1983-84 school year.

Although schools are closed for the summer, the West Virginia chapter of the ACLU isn’t taking a vacation. The group’s June newsletter asks for suggestions on ways to make the paddling law even more complicated.

Proponents of corporal punishment are so strong in West Virginia that the ACLU has no hope of abolishing spanking, Beller said.

According to End Violence Against the Next Generation Inc., an organization in Berkeley dedicated to ending child beating and other abuses, seven states prohibit paddling in schools: New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Hawaii.

New York will join them in September.

Before 1972, only New Jersey and Massachusetts disallowed paddling.

Paddling is also banned in many of the nation’s largest cities, including New York City, Boston, Baltimore, Washington, Atlanta, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Louis, and most California cities.

Ruling Spurs Lobby Effort

Yet in other states--particularly in the South--the rule of “spare the rod and spoil the child” remains largely unchallenged, Hyman said.

About half of the states have passed laws on school paddling, although some merely say that punishment cannot be excessively harsh or malicious.

Pro-paddling teachers lobbied for a state law after the West Virginia Supreme Court’s 1982 ruling that banned paddles or other instruments to inflict punishment.

Though they won legislative approval in 1983 to resume the paddlings, teachers’ groups are upset by the restrictions.

“It became a political football. People started playing games with it,” said Paul Armstrong, who led an unsuccessful attempt by the West Virginia Assn. of Elementary School Principals to do away with the 12-hour waiting period.

Many opponents of paddling--including some administrators who were reluctant to speak on the record--said teachers fall back on paddling because they aren’t properly trained in discipline.

But Lucht said attitudes common to many West Virginia families may do more to explain why teachers are determined to keep the paddle.

“The feeling is that it (spanking) is so embedded in the families that by the time a child gets to school, they don’t understand any other form of discipline,” she said. “That’s a premise a lot of teachers put forth and there is some truth to it.”

Armstrong often cites a state Parent-Teacher Assn. vote this spring rejecting a ban on paddling in the schools.

“There is no way we are promoting beating children or abusing children,” he said. “But in my 15 years, in education I’ve found that paddling works.”