All Kentucky school districts now have policies against corporal punishment [View all]

Advocates for children praise formal rejection of ‘school-sanctioned violence’

When Alex Young was in the seventh grade, he read an article about how Kentucky schools still had cases of corporal punishment.

Young, now a junior studying political science and government at Notre Dame, was researching policy proposals for his Kentucky Youth Assembly’s mock government conference at the time.

“Kids were still being paddled in schools,” he recalled learning. “That just blew my mind.”

The Louisvillian immediately started advocating outside KYA for a change in state law to prevent corporal punishment in schools.

This school year, all Kentucky school districts have policies against corporal punishment in place, according to Jill Seyfred, the executive director of the nonprofit Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky. This is the first full year for such uniform policies, she said.

During the 2017-2018 school year, there were 452 incidents of corporal punishment in Kentucky schools, according to Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky data. Snip

Read more at: https://kentuckylantern.com/2025/01/13/all-kentucky-school-districts-now-have-policies-against-corporal-punishment/