The Current-Argus, Carlsbad, New Mexico, 17 October 1985

Anti-'Swats' Group Forms

By Jeff Flinn
Newswire Editor

(extracts)

A personal brush with the Carlsbad Schools corporal punishment laws has sparked the creation of Parents Against Corporal Punishment, an organization whose name speaks for itself.

Pete Jimenez, a Carlsbad native who moved his family here from Santa Fe in the latter part of August, is organizing the group after being involved with an event he disclosed to the school board during its Tuesday meeting.

[...]

"After (Tuesday's) meeting, I decided it's time we face reality," he said. "Those individuals on the board, I do not feel they are ready to do anything about it."

Jimenez' objections stem from a disputed incident that happened early this school year.

Jimenez' 17-year-old daughter was caught smoking on Carlsbad High School grounds Sept. 12. She was punished for the incident, receiving two swats from CHS junior dean Ron Burton.

Jimenez admits the violation. What he condemns, however, is the school's handling of the case -- handling which he said contradicts the district's own corporal punishment procedures.

Jimenez claims his daughter was given no alternative to receiving a paddling, says that neither he nor his wife were contacted before the whacks were administered, and says he was never shown the "implied consent" form now being used by the district when he enrolled his daughter "three or four days before school began."

Jimenez said he met with Jeraldine Young, CHS guidance counselor, when he enrolled his daughter, explaining to Young his daughter's "personal" problems.

The teenager is an alcoholic, a problem Jimenez said he and his wife spent "two terrible years" trying to defeat.

"I personally informed Mrs. Young of my daughter and her problems," he said. "I took (Mrs. Young) all of her grades, papers, and informed her that my daughter had been a problem child and is an alcoholic.

"They knew the problems with (the daughter)," he said. "They shouldn't have done what they did. What (they) consider as a minor disciplinary problem can cause big problems ... with a young girl that has already been through hell."

"(The schools) have their policies, and they don't even follow them ... at least they didn't with my daughter," he said. "But this makes me wonder how many other people's sons and daughters have been spanked or paddled wrongly ... the kids are afraid to tell anybody because they don't want their parents to turn around and paddle them again."

But regardless of who is right and who is wrong, Jimenez said he is going to carry on with plans for the parent committee.

"We're serious people, and we mean well for the community," he said. "We're not going to exclude anybody from our group. Anybody who may have kids in school and are opposed to corporal punishment is welcome to join us."

Corpun file 6660

Miami Herald, Florida, 19 October 1985

Illinois

Teacher convicted in paddling incident

FREEPORT, Ill. -- A teacher, who still faces charge he held a student out a second-story window as punishment, has been convicted of reckless conduct for spanking a student 24 times with a wooden paddle.

The jury that convicted Robert Gasoske, of Pearl City, on Thursday also acquitted him of battery in the April 19 spanking of Scott Meyer, 11. Gasoske, who has taught in Pearl City for 14 years, could get up to a year in jail.

Witnesses testified that Gasoske, an eighth-grade teacher, took Meyer to the principal's office, where he struck the boy with a board because he was a discipline problem.