‘State-sanctioned violence:’ Inside one of the thousands of schools that still paddles students

Get important education news and analysis delivered straight to your inbox COLLINS, Miss. — At the beginning of every school year, April Johnson oversees distribution of the Covington County School District student handbook. Tucked into the first half of the handbook is a section titled “Corporal Punishment.”The handbook details how the punishment will be meted out: sensibly, “and applied only to the student’s buttocks in such a manner that there will be no permanent effects.”It puts limits on the frequency: “No more than three licks and one paddling a day.”It gives parents highly specific instructions if they don’t want their children paddled: present a request, in writing, to the school principal or assistant principal, “prior to the second Monday of the beginning of each school year.”And it offers students a caution: “Refusal to take corporal punishment may result in suspension.”Johnson is the principal of Mississippi’s Collins Elementary School, where the paddle remains a staple of...