USA: Missouri school district approves student spanking discipline

School District in the Southwest Missouri This Friday decided to reintroduce spanking as a method of disciplining students in the United States. The measure has been controversial as many public health experts have warned how harmful the practice is.

Classes resumed Tuesday in the Cassville School District for the first time since the school board approved a return to corporal punishment in June in a 1,900-student district about 60 miles (95 km) southwest of Springfield. This county abolished this practice in 2001.

politics in Missouri states that corporal punishment will only be used if other forms of disciplinary action, such as removal from office, have not helped, and only with the permission of the superior. However, the discussion in USA keep going.

Superintendent Merlin Johnson told The Springfield News-Leader that the decision came after an anonymous survey showed parents, students and school officials were concerned about student behavior and discipline.

“People thanked us for it,” he said. “Surprisingly, people on social media would probably be horrified to hear us say such things, but most of the people I came across supported us.”

For his part, Morgan Craven, National Director of Policy, Advocacy and Public Affairs at the Intercultural Development Research Association, said that corporal punishment is “a completely inappropriate and ineffective practice.”

The most recent data from 2017 to 2018 show that about 70,000 children in the United States have received at least one stroke in their schools.

According to Craven, students who are beaten at school do not do as well in school as their peers and suffer physical and psychological trauma. In some cases, children are so traumatized that they require medical attention.

“If you get into a situation where a child goes to school and they can get hit, you know, for a minor offense, it certainly creates a really hostile, unpredictable and violent environment,” Craven said. “And that’s not what we want for kids in schools.”

Abortion ban extends to the entire US

Anti-abortion laws go into effect in three other US states, further limiting access to voluntary termination of pregnancy two months after the Supreme Court’s historic decision to abolish that right.

According to statistics from The Washington Post, there are currently 21 million women banned or strictly prohibited from having abortions in 13 states.

Republican-ruled Tennessee, Texas, and Idaho joined a dozen states that also enforced laws approved before the Supreme Court’s ruling and still dormant.

(According to AP and AFP)