United States - School paddling - 3 TV news clips (2006)

CLIP 1 of 3

This 5-minute segment aired on The Early Show (CBS) in October 2006. The program visits Everman Junior High School near Fort Worth, Texas, where principal Anthony Price has recently reinstated CP, with parental consent. In the clip, he explains that students get a choice of punishment. 200 have chosen a paddling so far. He says it works, and morale and test scores are up. The mother of a paddled boy says that the experience improved her son's academics and his behavior. Ubiquitous anti-CP agitator Peggy Dean of North Carolina is also interviewed, as are several Everman students who have taken spankings in the past. Two of them, a boy and a girl, volunteer to go over Mr Price's desk for a demonstration two-swat paddling for the camera.

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CLIP 2 of 3

"Paddling - How Hard is Okay?", 3-minute clip, first of two local TV news reports about a mass paddling at a middle school in Mississippi. WPTY tv, Memphis Tennessee, reports (January 2006) from DeSoto County Mississippi (in fact a suburb of Memphis) where the football coach at Olive Branch Middle School had paddled around 20 boys. In the film, one 13-year-old shows a faint bruise on his thigh caused by one lick, and his normally pro-paddling father complains that the coach paddled too hard. (In my view a more pertinent criticism would be that the lick was inaccurately aimed.) A spokesman for the school board defends their policy.

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CLIP 3 of 3

"Battling Over Paddling Heats Up", 3-minute TV news follow-up to the above. Meeting of the DeSoto County School Board at which parents protest over paddling. A paddled boy's mother speaks. A pro-paddling parent is also briefly interviewed. As usual, anti-spanking activist Peggy Dean has flown in from North Carolina to involve herself in the affairs of the people of DeSoto County, Mississippi. The school board issues a statement reminding parents they can always opt out of CP.

NEW VERSION of clip, with sound and vision now more or less in sync.

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