Parents of a 5-year-old Annie Belle Clark student have moved their son to a private school after the boy received a paddling last week that left welts and bruises. They believe the paddling was excessively harsh, but school officials say the assistant principal who administered the corporal punishment was within policy guidelines and didn’t violate the system’s Code of Student Conduct.

The boy’s mother, who wished to remain anonymous, said she received a call from the school midday Thursday informing her that her son would receive a paddling for an incident that happened in the lunchroom. Even parents who give permission for the school paddlings receive a call prior to the paddling being administered.

“The school said that he and another little boy had kicked each other,” she said.

The boy’s father picked him up from school that afternoon and the two had plans to shop. The boy had to go to the restroom and that is where the father noticed the marks on the boy’s buttocks, the mother said. He then took the boy to the mother’s place of work and the mother looked at the marks.

The couple say that they give the boy spankings as punishment, but the marks left on the boy by the school paddling were alarming. Photos taken by the family on the day of the spanking and each day after for several days show a progression of the injury.

The parents called E-911 and then they and the boy went to the Tift County Sheriff’s Office. From the sheriff’s office, the three went to the Patticake House for interviews concerning the incident. The Patticake House is part of the Children’s Advocacy Center that serves children who are victims of crime or neglect by conducting interviews with the child and gathering evidence needed for a case.

From there, they went to the emergency room to have the boy’s bruises examined.

“The next day, we took him to his regular doctor and DFACS called and we took him up there Friday afternoon,” the mother said. “Then Friday afternoon, we went back to the sheriff’s office for them to take more pictures.”

The mother said that both the doctor and the Department of Families and Children Services case worker gave her the impression that the punishment was excessive.

According to the chart prepared by emergency room attendants, “There are multiple areas of local tenderness including the following areas: left buttocks and right buttocks. The skin over the following areas: left buttocks and right buttocks is intact with no lacerations or significant abrasions. Exam reveals multiple contusions involving the following areas: Left buttocks and right buttocks.”

The chart’s RN notes said that “the bruise on the left buttock is approximately 6 cm. long (2.36 inches) and 1 cm. (.39 inches) wide. Bruise on right buttock approximately 7 cm. (2.76) long and 6 c.m. (2.36 inches) wide. Bruising is dark purple.” The time on the notes is approximately eight hours after the paddling.

Tift County Sheriff Gary Vowell and TCSO’s Chief Investigator, Mike Walker, said this week that the investigation is ongoing and any evidence gathered in the case is being passed to District Attorney Paul Bowden. It will be up to Bowden, Walker and Vowell said, to decide whether to prosecute the administrator who gave the paddling.

“There has been a complaint filed and we are looking into it,” Walker said.

Walker said that his office has only received one complaint relating to the incident and that the investigation is ongoing.

According to the Tift County Discipline Report the parents received in the mail, the narrative describing the incident read, “Another student saw (the boy) kick (another boy) at lunch. (The boy) said he ‘put his foot on (the other boy) to tell him something.’ After speaking with both, (the other boy) said (the boy) kicked him really hard.”

The mother said that she and other family members paid a visit to the Tift County Board of Education and spoke with interim Tift County School System Superintendent Patrick Atwater. The family requested that the boy be allowed to attend another public school within Tift County.

“We ask him to move him (the boy) to another school,” the mother said. “Patrick said he would have to get with board members and let us know something.

“He got back with us after lunch and told us that it was in everybody’s best interest for our son to go back to school there and that they were very remorseful for any bruising that was caused by the paddling.”

Atwater said Friday that it was his recommendation that the boy not be allowed to switch schools.

“I had rather not elaborate (as to why) because it will open me up to more rants and raves than this article will already produce,” Atwater said.

Atwater said he saw the photographs of the boy’s buttocks but wouldn’t answer when asked what his initial reaction to them was.

“Basically, I’m supporting our staff members firmly,” Atwater said. “I am supporting our staff members 100 percent in the decisions they made in this incident.”

Atwater said that corporal punishment is administered on a “case-by-case” basis according to “a very strict student code of conduct” that “provides administrative discretion and it provides a minimum and maximum punishment for offenses and the administration provides for discretion for punishment within those parameters.”

The Student Code of Conduct for punishment reads, in part, “sound discretion will be exercised and corporal punishment will not be excessive or unduly severe.”

“The boys kicked each other,” the mother said. “It wasn’t like they had a knock-down, drag-out fight.

“Plus, I gave permission for him to get paddled, not beaten.”

The mother said she and her husband felt that the only place their son was safe was at home and at school and part of that security had been taken away with the incident. She said that she didn’t want her son to have to return to an environment that might appear threatening to him.

“It was known that we had made a complaint against the administrator there, but we would have been happy for him to go to another Tift County school,” she said.

The mother said that her son is doing fine and has cousins who attend the private school he is now attending. She said that she hopes now that the investigation into the paddling incident continues “according to law.”

“I would expect them to go through the same procedures and follow the law just as they would for anybody else,” the mother said.

“A law enforcement agent told me that if it had been a member of the family who paddled him that hard, they would be in jail now,” one grandparent said.



To contact city editor Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.