Teachers' snowball fight leads to paddling claim

[cmd]

Spare the rod, spoil the . . . teacher? (sub headline)

http://www.cleveland.com/education/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1129282410204760.xml&coll=2

A former teacher at a Cleveland charter school under fire for financial and academic woes says a principal paddled three teachers last winter for throwing snowballs during horseplay outside the building.
(snip)
Debra Aquaowo, who taught at the school last year, said she and other teachers playfully tossed snowballs at each other one morning last winter while waiting for administrators to arrive and open the school.

Once inside, Aquaowo said she heard the crack of a wooden paddle coming from the principal's office. She said three teachers told her they were smacked on the butt with a paddle, and the principal confirmed the paddlings to her.

(snip)
The paddling tale is the latest twist in the long and winding story of the 6-year-old charter school, Cleveland's largest. Earlier this week, state Auditor Betty Montgomery issued two scathing financial audits of the school and called on it to be shut down.

Note: Lawyers for the school deny the story.

[Verve]

1. WTF? n/t

[truthisfreedom]

the "spare the rod" parable is misunderstood. it's about a shepherd's

rod or hook, not about beating children with a "rod." basically, if you don't steer or guide a child back to the fold with your "shepherd's rod" the child can become undisciplined... unfortunately that one maligned phrase been used for hundreds of years as a broad excuse for horrible violence against vulnerable innocents.

[htuttle]

2. Wow

When I was a student back in high school, if some principal had tried to paddle a student, much less a teacher, they would have ended up eating the paddle. I saw more than one occasion where a vice principal tried to break up a fight and went down. Hard.

Guess that's partly due to it being a public school, and partly because most of my graduating class were huge farm kids who carried hay bales around for exercise....

In any case, I can't imagine any of my former teachers putting up with this sort of crap.

:shrug:

[superconnected]

3. Sounds more like an S&M group... come one, adults don't let people

paddle them. All they have to do is call the police for assult.

This is flat out wierd.

[HereSince1628]

4. Don't you just love where the country is heading?

I thought defending corporal punishment for students in schools was a rural Arkansas thing.

But, Michigan? I'd have never thought battery on a teacher by the principle was considered legal.

[yellowcanine]

5. He paddled the teachers??? For tossing snowballs??? And they allowed him

to do this?

[cmd]

6. Charter school teachers have no rights

Spend tens of thousands of dollars getting an education, have tens of thousands of dollars in student loans hanging over your head; you would take a job in a charter school when no jobs in public schools are available. Then you have to put up with stuff like this.

[NorthernSpy]

7. this one's almost too good to debunk...

But through sheer force of habit, I'll point out that these allegations are made by one person who did not witness any paddlings of teachers. Debra Aquaowo claims that the allegedly-paddled teachers and the alleged paddler principal told her that the paddling stories were true.

The school's lawyer says that teachers had joked about the prospect of getting paddled for their snowball fight.

Corporal punishment of workers is illegal in the United States. Hitting an adult is battery. But no one pressed charges.

So at this point it seems that if in fact any paddling did occur, it was more likely (ahem) consensual in nature.


Gawd, what a story...

:think: