Mother Objects to Teen Daughter Being Spanked By Vice Principal
When 15-year-old Taylor Santos, a sophomore at Springtown High School in Texas was called in to be disciplined for allegedly letting another student copy her work, she was punished by having a two-day suspension. In a bizarre request, after the first day, Taylor asked if she could be paddled instead of missing another day of school. The teen called her mother, who also approved the request.
The story gets weirder, however: Taylor's mother, Anna Jorgensen, is now furious because a male vice principal spanked her daughter, although there was a female present during the punishment (school policy says that females have to spank females, and the same goes for males). Now the mom is complaining because her daughter's posterior is covered in "welts and bruises" and is going to the school board to file a formal complaint because "proper protocol was not followed." The school responded by saying that it may do away with corporal punishment. Can we get a resounding "it's about time"?
Despite the fact that 19 states in the US allow students to be spanked or paddled by administrators, there are far better ways to discipline students than by hitting them with a wooden paddle, especially since studies show that it is African-American students who are beaten far more than their Caucasian peers.
Hopefully, this taught Anne Jorgensen a lesson about okaying paddling for teenaged students, and perhaps this will start a dialogue that will lead to banning corporal punishments in schools outright.
What do you think? Was the vice-principal just doing his job? Should a male teacher be allowed to discipline a female student? Aren't teenagers a little old for paddling? And is corporal punishment in schools okay? Watch a news report on Springtown changing their stance on corporal punishment below.