“I brought a prop with me, here.”
And then he held up a paddle.
Near the end of Tuesday’s study session meeting of the Springfield Board of Education, board member Steve Makoski held up a paddle. From its size and shape, the paddle was not intended for use with canoes, but with rear ends.
Holding the paddle, Makoski encouraged the school board to consider adding corporal punishment to its list of disciplinary measures. The proposal drew a couple of gasps from people in attendance.
A day after the recommendation, Makoski said he still feels the same: It’s something Springfield Public Schools should consider, in light of incidents of severe violence at two schools. Perhaps the threat of corporal punishment would prevent such instances, he said.
“It’s not that I want corporal punishment, let’s be clear,” Makoski said. “But we’ve had some events recently that were rather abusive and violent. The question is what are we doing about it… It’s about whether we are looking at every possibility in front of us.”
Springfield Public Schools already has an answer to the question of what to do: It is in the first year of implementing a system based off a structure known as Positive Behavior Interventions and Strategies. Administrators use a tactic known as conscious discipline, which involves ensuring that a student in trouble for poor behavior is calm before they receive punishment.
The plan was integrated into the school district’s five-year strategic plan, which Makoski and other board members approved in late 2022.
But Makoski isn’t so sure about those concepts anymore.
“PBIS needs to be at home, conscious discipline starts at home,” Makoski said. “I can’t say I have a wholehearted belief in PBIS, and I don’t have full confidence in conscious discipline. It might be part of the solution, but are there other opportunities that maybe we are not using.”
Spanking not an option in SPS
Springfield Public Schools policy bars the use of “physical force as a method of correcting student behavior.” Physical force against students is allowed in cases where it would protect them from themselves or other students, or to protect property, according to board policy JGA-2. That policy has been in place since 2015, with a revision and review in 2022.
The review occurred in response to a state law passed in 2022. According to Missouri Revised Statute 160.261, school districts must obtain parental permission before using any form of corporal punishment.
Paddling panned by health professionals
Spanking, paddling and other forms of corporal punishment used in schools has been panned by doctors and other health professionals.
Dr. Garima Singh, chief medical officer for Brightli, said that research and evidence shows that it causes damage to children’s health and impairs the development of healthy relationships. Singh is certified in child and adolescent psychiatry.
“In fact, deploying corporal punishment with school-aged populations will generally increase undesirable behaviors; there is certainly no evidence that these behaviors desist with this method as a reinforcer,” Singh wrote in a statement released by Burrell Behavioral Health, owned by Brightli. “There is substantial and growing research that this practice is harmful, with calls by many health care providers for its abolishment nationwide.”
Counselors and other experts with Burrell were involved in helping SPS set up its PBIS-based student discipline structure.
Singh said that both the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Academy of Pediatrics oppose its use in schools. According to a report from the AAP, such punishments increase instances of problem behaviors, instead of preventing them.
The group also said that Black children and children with disabilities are targeted more often by such punishments.
Missouri is one of 19 states where corporal punishment for students is still allowed, however. According to a report from the Missouri Independent, 123 school district in Missouri still allow the practice.
According to that report, board members who approve of the use do so because it is how those board members were raised. Makoski counts himself in that group.
“I never had a paddle used on me, but I knew that there was a paddle, and maybe a student or two had gotten swatted,” Makoski said. “I did not want to get in trouble to the degree were I got swatted. Was that something that guided my behavior? Sure was.”
One of four ideas
The idea was one of four ideas Makoski presented during the meeting. The other three involved banning cellphone use in classrooms, having parents immediately removing disruptive students, and holding district-wide “stand down” assemblies, where students would be told violence will not be tolerated.
Makoski listed his ideas in the “board member comments” section of the meeting, which had gone on for four hours prior. Other board members responded favorably to the idea about banning cellphone use.
Only Judy Brunner responded to the idea of bringing back corporal punishment.
“I served many years as a principal, and I thank the good Lord that no one ever expected me to hit a child, and it’s the truth. I could not have done it,” Brunner said. “I paddled my own at home, but I could not have done that in a school setting.”
Corporal punishment could appear on a future Springfield Board of Education agenda. Makoski said that he has sent a letter to the Missouri School Boards Association asking for a corporal punishment policy structure.
“I’d like to see MSBA provide some policy guidance on what that discipline might look like,” Makoski said. “Basically, we have the same cookie cutter policy from the MSBA, which doesn’t condone it. If MSBA is going to help districts that are part of it, then help us out in determining what that policy would look like.”
Discipline discussion will continue
Behavior has been a repeated topic at SPS board meetings, and is likely to be discussed more in the future.
In September 2023, Deputy Superintendent Nicole Holt presented a program to board members about how its adoption changed the first days of school across all of the district’s buildings.
In November, Springfield National Education Association President Laura Mullins spoke to the school board and reported that teachers were being asked to ignore minor infractions for behavior referrals, and that major referrals were not being punished.
Mullins also said teachers were observing students bullying, threatening physical harm, flipping chairs, writing on walls, upending offices and classrooms and pointing fingers in teachers’ faces and yelling at them.
The SNEA staged a demonstration in December outside SPS headquarters before a board meeting to highlight teacher conditions.
In January, Holt said that schools are writing more discipline referrals than ever before, and that schools were “encountering student behavior at a volume and frequency that we have not seen.”
Makoski said that he felt parents should do a better job teaching discipline to their children, and that schools should be concerned only with spending money that emphasizes “ABCs and 123s,” not social-emotional or behavior learning. But he acknowledged that teachers, principals and other employees are forced to deal with those issues when public school students enter their doors.
The Daily Citizen has requested comment from Springfield Public Schools, and will update this report if a reply is received.
