Now we know better: It’s Time to Stop Hitting Students.

Dr. Kyle Reynolds is an education consultant with 28 years of experience in public education.  His dissertation "Implementation of a Multi-Tiered System of Supports in Public Schools to Improve Student Behavior and Mental Health Indicators" was published earlier this year.

We know better. Doctors once promoted smoking as a good thing. Coca-Cola once contained cocaine. And when I was a kid, a school administrator hitting a kid with a wooden paddle was the norm. Now we know better.

I was blessed and fortunate that my school did away with corporal punishment a few short months before I began my career in administration as an assistant principal at my high school. I spent 28 years in public education, all at my alma mater, Woodward Public Schools, and for the last nine years, I was the superintendent.

While I was the IT Director, I vividly remember an incident where a student was paddled. It was done “by the book” with the written consent of the parent, who also witnessed the paddling. Mom was very frustrated with her child, who was once again in trouble. Maybe three hours later, there were pictures of that child’s buttocks on the 5 o’clock news with the parent complaining that the school beat her child. Just looking at the pictures on TV, I’m not sure anyone could tell the difference between child abuse and paddling at school. I remember thinking then that the school would lose the battle in the court of opinion every time in that situation.

As a matter of fact, by the statutory definition, striking a child for discipline in any other setting besides school is defined as child abuse. A daycare worker would be fired immediately for striking a child, and it would be possible for the daycare to lose its license. A foster parent would lose custody of the child and possibly face criminal charges.

And yet it is all too common today for students in Oklahoma schools to be hit with a board for discipline.

Over the years, I have had many conversations centered around the misconception that without corporal punishment, there are no disciplinary consequences for students. That is just not true. In fact, as a disciplinary measure, corporal punishment has been proven only to have short-term positive effects at best. It can lead to long-term negative effects, and that is assuming the punishment is handled correctly. 

There are many research-based, proven strategies for improving student behavior. I recently completed a study of two rural Oklahoma schools that had implemented MTSS (Multi-Tiered Systems of Support) to improve student behavior and student mental health. To be honest, I was concerned that the results would not be positive, yet in this quantitative study, we found that ODRs (Office Discipline Referrals) and student mental health, as measured by the SDQ (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire), improved during the implementation. When you consider that the implementation occurred during and immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic, I think those results are striking.

When talking about excluding students who are on an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) from corporal punishment, I have heard the argument that parents will simply put their child on an IEP to “get them off the hook.” Regardless of what one may think about how easy it is to place a student on an IEP, it is a tedious, lengthy process; to think that a parent would be willing and successful in getting their child on an IEP just so they would not be spanked is, quite frankly, laughable to those who know and understand the process.

Furthermore, to think that the students on an IEP would be “off the hook” because they would not be paddled is repeating the misnomer that without paddling there are no disciplinary consequences. Our universities and the staff at the Oklahoma State Department of Education stand ready to help schools implement better practices.

Again, I was fortunate and blessed to be in the district I was in for so many years, including the fact that we partnered with a local agency to provide an alternative for exclusionary discipline (i.e., suspensions) and help troubled students find better ways to behave, cope, and regulate their emotions. This agency is also placing eight staff certified in Behavior Intervention Strategies to add to the dozen Woodward Public Schools staff who are already certified. This allows a trained professional to work with teachers who have students with behavior issues in their classrooms. That is where the real, meaningful work lies in not only helping teachers deal with students but also helping to determine what is the root cause of the students’ behavior.

Our school also partnered with the area career tech to establish TAP (Technical Applications Program) for our middle school. The students are exposed to the several trades taught at the career tech in a hands-on “STEM” approach, and it has been successful in a number of ways, including increased ACT scores, attendance, and discipline. In the past several years of having this program in place, an office discipline referral has been an extremely rare occurrence, proving that an engaging and relevant pedagogy does wonders for classroom management and student behavior issues.

Ruling over students through the fear of the threat of physical pain is a relic of the past. It’s time to move on, and at a minimum starting with excluding students with disabilities is the least we can do.

Written by Kyle Reynolds, Ed.D.