KMOV.com
Posted on April 17, 2014 at 6:11 AM
Updated today at 7:57 AM
(KMOV) – Missouri is one of 19 states allowing corporal punishment in schools, though that practice may soon be banned, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The Missouri Senate Committee on Progress and Development unanimously passed a bill Wednesday to ban corporal punishment in all public and private schools.
As it stands, Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) requires each district’s written discipline policy to include rules on corporal punishment.
The Post-Dispatch reports should it be used, the local school board must determine how it will be used and whether a parent will be notified or allowed to choose a different form of discipline.
DESE doesn’t keep track of which Missouri districts use corporal punishment, but in 2009 the Missouri School Boards’ Association estimated at least 70 of the more than 500 state districts had policies allowing the practice.
The Fox School District was one of the last in the St. Louis area to get rid of corporal punishment in the early 2000s.
