lawprofessors

By Michelle Ball, California Education Attorney for Students since 1995 School staff willfully inflicting physical pain to students is considered corporal punishment and prohibited in California unless certain exceptions exist.  As such, hitting, pulling hair, pinching, kicking, and other forms of physically painful contact with a student, usually is unacceptable and illegal. In California Education Code 49001 , "Corporal Punishment" is defined as: " willful infliction of, or willfully causing the infliction of, physical pain on a pupil ."  This means that any PHYSICAL PAIN caused intentionally to a student, by a person employed or engaged by a school, is not okay.  Would purposefully slamming a student into a wall, spanking a student, slapping their hand with a ruler, and/or lifting a student out of a pool by their hair be considered "corporal punishment?"  To determine this, ask yourself: was physical pain caused to the student?  Was the physical pain in...

By Michelle Ball, California Education Attorney for Students since 1995 One of the top stories in my area (Sacramento, California) and apparently around the globe, is that of the female student whose coach attempted to lift her out of the water by her hair at a swim meet.  The student was thereafter told that she was kicked off the swim team and stripped of her swim badges, all because she and another student swam half of their portion of a freestyle swim race.  The word "overkill" seems in order. This incident has now gone global with internet access to the media.  The man involved, Geoff Capell, has now reportedly quit his position as assistant swim coach and the head swim coach (his daughter) remains.  This is BIG news and such actions can cause BIG problems for school districts. Meanwhile, despite the situation, when I heard from the family, they were getting nowhere as far as getting the student, and her teammate who was also kicked off, back on the team.  ...