RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Fewer North Carolina children are being paddled, an accelerating trend after one of the school districts that most often used corporal punishment cut out the practice this month.
A report to the state school board last month showed that two school districts accounted for nearly two-thirds of the nearly 900 uses of corporal punishment in the school year that ended last June. Robeson County led the state’s handful of remaining counties that mete out physical pain to discipline children, followed by Columbus County.
Columbus County schools superintendent Alan Faulk said Tuesday the district suspended paddling days after seeing the numbers and ended paddling this month.
North Carolina is among fewer than 20 states that allow paddling. Only about a dozen of the state’s 115 school districts practice corporal punishment.