UF graduates Graham Bernstein and Konstantin Nakov fought for years for Florida to ban corporal punishment in schools — often known as paddling. Their efforts came to fruition earlier this year with a law requiring parents to consent before their kids are struck.
Before the law took effect, Florida public schools provided parents, upon request, with a written statement explaining what the punishment was and why it was administered. Now, parents must opt in to the practice with written consent before their child is punished.
“[School] is a place where kids should feel safe and welcome, always,” said Nakov, 24, “and that’s not something that is really compatible with corporal punishment.”
Nineteen school districts in Florida allow corporal punishment, with a total of 516 kids in those districts being struck during the 2023-24 school year, according to the Florida Department of Education. Most districts have either banned the practice, like Alachua County, or already require parental consent.
According to the Florida law, which went into effect July 1, corporal punishment encompasses using physical force on a student as a mode of discipline. School boards can either request consent for use of corporal punishment for the whole year or before each use.
This law comes after a UF student group, Florida Student Policy Forum, partnered with conservative activist group Moms for Liberty to push lawmakers to accept the bill.
Bernstein, a recent UF graduate and former member of the policy forum, started advocating against the use of corporal punishment in 2022.
Soon after, Nakov, who said he couldn’t believe corporal punishment was still used in school, joined the project.
At first, Nakov and Bernstein, along with the policy forum, advocated to outlaw corporal punishment entirely. But, they remember struggling to find a sponsor for the bill and being met with resistance from lawmakers who believed corporal punishment can be an effective method of discipline.
Still, they thought they could find a way to push the legislation through. That’s when they came up with a compromise: Corporal punishment could exist, but only for the parents who wanted it.
Their first step was to enlist Moms for Liberty. The group had influenced Florida politics before, most notably to un-shelf school library books that some parents found inappropriate. And among its self-described goals are to expand parental rights — an angle Nakov and Bernstein were beginning to embrace.
Bernstein said he believes requiring parental consent would mitigate the consequences of corporal punishment for everyone. It would provide more safeguards for students and protect parental rights, he said.
“If you add more regulations to a thing … That’ll, of course, reduce the number of kids who get hit,” he said.
Bernstein expects that corporal punishment will gradually be phased out as a result of the bill, he added.
Though most of the state has already outlawed the punishment, Suwannee County, Florida, had the most instances of it during the 2023-24 school year — a total of 74 cases that made up about 1.2% of students. (Other counties that use the punishment had higher rates compared to their student populations.)
Katlyn Howard, a 28-year-old mother of two children at Riverside Elementary School in Suwannee County, said the district has sent home a green paper every year allowing parents to opt out of the practice.
“That is very interesting to know that Suwannee County parents allow their kids to get spanked at school, because I would never,” Howard said.
In some documented cases of corporal punishment, parents’ wishes weren’t always followed.
In 2021, a Liberty County, Florida, school paddled an 18-year-old girl even though she and her mother did not consent to it.
Howard said hearing about the incident “makes me want to ask my kids if they’ve ever gotten a spanking at school.”
Many of the schools that allow corporal punishment in Florida are in rural areas in the panhandle with lower median incomes, as shown by Florida Department of Education data.
Of the 19 districts that allow the practice, only one is above the median household income for the state.
Over 84% of students, on average, in counties that allow corporal punishment qualify for the free or reduced lunch program, whereas the state average is only 62%, according to the research provided by the policy forum.
This same research also shows those counties have more absenteeism, lower GPAs and higher juvenile arrest rates, which Bernstein said proves corporal punishment is not an effective way to correct behavior.
“There are plenty of schools that employ school corporal punishment today, and in the past, that have still had major disciplinary issues,” Bernstein said.
Bernstein said a total ban on corporal punishment might come in the next decade, as new legislators take office. But for now, the bill is a good place to start.
Contact Alexa Ryan at aryan@alligator.org
