DATE: Saturday, May 31, 1997                TAG: 9705310266

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   83 lines

MORE SCHOOLS MAY BE SPARING THE ROD $5,000 VERDICT FOR PADDLING HAS THEM REVIEWING POLICIES.

It was the whack heard 'round Hampton Roads.

The verdict in the case of a 13-year-old student who sued Tabernacle Baptist School for paddling him has caused other conservative, church-affiliated schools to re-evaluate their policies.

A Circuit Court jury on Thursday ruled that paddlings given to then-eighth-grader Luis Viner amounted to excessive force and awarded the student $5,000 for the pain and humiliation they caused.

It was not so much the first two blows that Viner suffered on the morning of Jan. 24, 1996. They were given after a teacher warned him about inappropriate behavior, testimony established. It was the third, delivered by another teacher later in the day, that got the jury's attention.

Viner had merely picked up a notebook, out of boredom, he says, and peered through one of the holes. It caused laughter, according to testimony, and a trip into the hall where the student was instructed to bend over and receive the punishment.

The blows resulted in whelts and a bruise, which the teacher, Darren Vance, said in a deposition was not only sanctioned by the school but by God.

The jury of four women and three men did not agree, assigning $4,000 of the $5,000 award to that one blow.

The verdict already has caused a number of schools to rethink their paddling policies.

Robert Miller, superintendent of Norfolk Christian School, said the school gives teachers ``full discretion in the discipline of our children, which includes the right to administer corporal punishment.''

Striking as many as five blows with a small wooden paddle is permitted, he said, but ``we use it very sparingly.'' And parents may withhold permission for the school to do it.

Now, as a result of the jury's verdict, Miller said, it is likely the school will ``revisit and readjust'' its policy to make sure there is no room for mistakes.

Atlantic Shores Christian School also permits paddling, but only after parents are notified and a conference held. Keith Hall, principal of the high school in Chesapeake, said the school now will likely re-evaluate its policy.

Alliance Christian School in Portsmouth never has allowed paddling, said administrator Cliff Williams. ``We just feel like we've got some other alternatives that are more useful.''

Most private religious schools use the spare-the-rod, spoil-the-child passage from Proverbs, a book from the Bible's Old Testament, as justification for striking children.

But Williams said, ``That passage was certainly written to the parents.''

Tabernacle Baptist had 2-foot-long, 3-inch-wide wooden paddles made to order and placed in every classroom. Although one part of its manual described several steps, including detention, that must precede paddling, another left that up to individual teachers.

As a result of the lawsuit, the school took discretion away from teachers and gave it to the principal.

Corporal punishment in public schools was outlawed in Virginia in the mid-1980s. Now, 26 states and most large school districts have banned the practice, according to Katharine Kersey, professor of early childhood education at Old Dominion University.

Kersey, who lobbied for Virginia's ban, said, ``Corporal punishment is unnecessary, and it creates additional problems because you have now become a model for hitting. Children who have been hit will go out and hit others, their siblings, their dogs. They have to do something with the anger that the hitting produces.''

She said the passage from Proverbs has been widely misused. ``It refers to a shepherd with his sheep and the rod he uses to guide them. Our role as parents and teachers is to guide our children.''

Many who use the paddle say they're doing it out of love, but Charles Heuchert, assistant dean in the School of Education at the University of Virginia, said that sends the wrong message.

``Does love mean that I can slap you around?'' Heuchert said.

Children often misbehave, he said, because of problems they're having. ``If they get paddled on top of that, I don't think you're going to get anywhere with them.''

Catholic schools were once well known for whacking misbehaving children, often with a ruler. But Deni Brown, vice principal at the largest Catholic school in Virginia Beach, St. Gregory's, said corporal punishment hasn't been used in the 15 years she's been there.

Punishment should tell students something about what they've done, Brown said. ``Corporal punishment doesn't teach a child anything about what the behavior was.'' KEYWORDS: CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

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