Mississippi Coalition to End Corporal Punishment

In 2012, Youth Organizers of Nollie Jenkins Family Center, Inc. and students of Holmes County School District embarked upon a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project to address the increasing level of violence occurring in the Holmes County community, including corporal punishment.  After years of fighting, submitting petitions, and conducting presentations to the school board, we accomplished eliminating corporal punishment in August 2018. The Holmes County Consolidated School District (HCCSD) continues to work toward using alternatives to punitive discipline practices.  Our next steps are to make sure that effective alternatives are implemented inside of schools.

 

From this initial research, NJFC created a campaign to abolish corporal punishment in all schools within the HCCSD and implement effective discipline practices that create safe and healthy school environments.  Early on in our Campaign, we encountered a sadistic middle and high school principal who tagged his paddle, "Take the Wood or Go to the Hood".  A combination of his physical stature and authorization of the school board allowed him to bully students and parents.  It was not uncommon to step into any elementary, middle and/or high school and hear the sounds of children crying from being paddled with boards wrapped in gray tape to inflict greater harm.  It was not an uncommon practice to walk into schools and consistently witness teachers and principals with boards underneath their arms as a visual threat to students.  In fact, we've documented a preponderance of cases where students after having received corporal punishment, said, "She just told me to go to the office," without having been given any substantive justification. 

 

The Mississippi Coalition to End Corporal Punishment was formed in October, 2020, to advance the efforts by Nollie Jenkins Family Center (NJFC) at the local, state, and federal levels to eliminate corporal punishment in public and charter schools across the state of Mississippi.  A Call to Action to the following organizations and/individuals were met with a positive response, American Federation of Teachers-MS, (AFT-MS), Unitarian Universalist Church of Jackson, MS, Families As Allies, Activist With A Purpose Plus, One Voice, Mississippi State NAACP, Fannie Lou Hamer Center for Change, Montgomery Citizens United for Prosperity (M-CUP), and Tennesseans for Non-Violent School Discipline.  

 

Going forward, the Coalition has adopted an action research intervention strategy to push for the adoption of more effective alternative discipline strategies.  We are collaborating with other organizations and individuals to extend the new ban on corporal punishment to all public school districts and charter school throughout the state of Mississippi.

 

THE EFFECTS OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN SCHOOLS

Why we took on this work? Every day, in nineteen states across the country, students are at risk of being subjected to corporal punishment, or the act of inflicting physical pain as a form of discipline. This disgraceful practice can result in serious physical injury, including abrasions, broken bones, bruising, hematomas, and other medical complications, and it can cause damaging long-term outcomes. 

 

Research has linked the practice in schools to poor academic performance, physical and emotional harm, and damage to students’ self-esteem and to their trust with educators.  In addition to being both deeply harmful and ineffective, corporal punishment is disproportionately applied to black and brown students and students with disabilities.

 

Corporal punishment of children is banned in juvenile detention centers, residential treatment facilities, foster care homes, day care centers, early learning centers and mental health programs, but allowed in our public schools.  Why? 

 

Corporal punishment is a severe violation of children's rights to respect for their human dignity, physical integrity, healthy development, education and freedom from torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

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We are working to

 

1.) Get legislation passed at the  federal level,  "Protecting Our Students in Schools Act of 2021"

2. ) create legislation & policy to be introduced at the next legislative session that addresses the elimination of corporal punishment in Mississippi.

3.) Conduct interviews of parents & students, uplifting their stories and experiences with corporal punishment.

4.) implement effective alternatives to discipline in schools

5.) Create safer more welcoming schools as we transition into life after covid.