‘I think it instills fear:’ Northern Florida schools still spanking students in the classroom

COLUMBIA COUNTY, Fla. — Some schools in Florida still spank students to discipline them. Corporal punishment is legal in Florida and 18 other states across the country.

The National Institutes of Health studied the issue and found the bulk of cases are in the southeastern United States. It found children were spanked more often based on race, gender, and disability. It recommends states change their policies.

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Florida law is clear. It states principals need to make their own guidelines for their schools. That includes whether they want to notify parents. The teacher or principal shall, upon request, provide the student’s parent with a written explanation of the reason for the punishment, after the fact.

Action News Jax studied six years’ worth of state data and found most of the districts and schools in Florida have abolished the use of corporal punishment. But the ones still using it, use it often.

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Over the past six years, schools spanked students at least 5,681 times in 24 Florida school districts, according to the Florida Department of Education records. The district with some of the highest number of corporal punishment cases in the state is in our area. Columbia County spanked 884 students.

You can find out how many cases of spanking have occurred over the last several years in the interactive map created by Action News Jax (see below). It breaks down county by county how many cases of corporal punishment were reported to the state.

Action News Jax’s Meghan Moriarty went to Lake City to ask why so many kids were punished this way. We were referred to the school district’s office. The school district referred us to its online policy.

It reads, in part, “The use of corporal punishment shall be approved by the principal in each instance before it is used. ... A principal or assistant principal, who has administered punishment shall, upon request, provide the student’s parent with a written explanation of the reason for the punishment.” (See full document below)

Theresa Rulien, CEO of the Child Guidance Center in Jacksonville, holds a Ph. D. in family therapy and said corporal punishment is not an effective punishment.

“It may stop that behavior that second, but it doesn’t teach anything going forward,” Rulien said. “I think it instills fear and as a child gets older it really instills disrespect. If there’s fear instilled, how often is a child going to come to that teacher and really be open to learning?”

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Duval, Clay, St. Johns, and Nassau school districts said they no longer spank students.

A Clay County school district spokesperson sent us this statement regarding our inquiry: “We do have this in policy, but it is not in practice or a punishment that is used in schools. It is not listed on our list of discipline codes in our student information system.” Clay County last reported spanking six years ago.

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Both Nassau and Duval school district officials simply said the districts do not use this type of punishment. Records showed Nassau did report cases of corporal punishment in 2021.

St Johns County schools reported at least two cases to the state in the last two years. A district spokesperson said that was coded incorrectly, and it was supposed to instead be “conference” not corporal punishment.

Union and Putnam County schools did not respond to our requests. A Bradford school district spokesperson said they were working on our request, but we haven’t heard back.

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