Mom Angry That Male Vice Principal Spanked Her Daughter
Rather
than spend two days in in-school suspension for allegedly letting
another student copy her classwork, Taylor Santos, a well-regarded
student and athlete at Springtown High School, near Fort Worth, Texas,
chose to get paddled.
As her mother, Anna Jorgensen, told ABC News affiliate WFAA-TV in Dallas, Taylor didn't want to miss any classes because "her grades are very important to her."
So Santos went to the vice principal's office to request a paddling. She
called her mom, who said that as long as her daughter was OK with it,
so was she. According to school policy, parents who don't want their children to subject to corporal punishment must submit a written statement each year.
What neither Jorgenson nor Santos knew was that a man - the vice
principal - would be doing the swatting, while a female watched. As far
as Jorgensen knew, she said, school policy mandated that males spanked
males and females spanked females.
Because of the force with with Santos was struck, her bottom was
fire-engine red and looked as if it had been "burned and blistered,"
said Jorgensen, who took photos as evidence.
While paddling in public schools has been outlawed by 31 states, as well
as by Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, the Supreme Court ruled in
1977 that it was legal unless it has abolished by local authorities,
according to the web site Corpun.com.
It is legal in 19 states; efforts to ban it in Wyoming, North Carolina, Louisiana and Texas failed. However, in 2011 laws were introduced in both Texas and North Carolina giving parents the right to exempt their students from paddling.
"A lot of people think it was abolished 20 years ago," Jimmy Dunne, president of People Opposed to Paddling Students
(POPS), told ABC News. A former math teacher in the Houston Middle
Schools, Dunne founded POPS in 1981 and has been the spanker and
spankee. But he refused to participate after noticing that some teachers
were "getting sadistic pleasure out of hitting these kids."
He has actively tried to get schools to curb the practice ever since,
but he has met with resistance. In June, he appeared at an anti-corporal
punishment in schools rally
in Washington, D.C., and will be attending a school board meeting on
Monday after a 13-year-old student at Barbers Hill Middle School in
Houston was covered with welts and bruises after a paddling he received for getting three consecutive zero grades.
"Members of the Texas legislature say, 'I was paddled, and I turned out
OK,'" he said. "Or they say they want to leave it up to the local
district to decide. They think it's good discipline. But it's legalized
child abuse. I always say if this was done away from the school, the
person would be arrested."
The day after her daughter's paddling, Jorgensen called the vice
principal to complain, but was told it was "normal for her bottom to
look like this after receiving swats." The vice principal added that he
had no idea about the same gender swatting, Jorgensen said.
Neither Jorgensen, nor the vice principal nor Springtown ISD
Superintendent Mike Kelley, was available for comment by ABC News. But
according to WFAA, Kelley is going to ask the school board to abolish
the same gender policy, since adhering to it can be difficult on some
campuses.
Jorgensen told WFAA that she will be at the school board meeting to encourage them not to abolish the same-gender policy.
"I think Taylor is proof that we need to keep that policy," she said. "I
don't believe a man intentionally meant to do that to her, but it still
happens, because men are too big and strong to be hitting 96-pound
girls."
