Florida School Principal Caught on Cam Hitting 6-Year-Old Girl With Paddle
A student's name is written on a desk as a teacher sets up her classroom at Freedom Preparatory Academy as teachers begin to prepare to restart school after it was closed in March due to COVID-19 on August 13, 2020 in Provo, Utah. George Frey/Getty Images

A Florida elementary school principal has been captured on video spanking a six-year-old girl with a paddle.

Melissa Carter, head of Central Elementary School in Clewiston, was recorded bending the student over and hitting her with the wooden paddle several times. The student's mom managed to film the incident.

"The hatred with which she hit my daughter, I mean it was a hatred that, really I've never hit my daughter as she hit her," said the girl's mom as reported by New York Post.

The Incident in Florida School

The child's mother does not speak English. She said that the school called her on Apr. 13 because her daughter damaged a school computer with a repair cost of about $50.

She then went to school to pay the fee, but she was taken to the principal's office, where her daughter, Carter, and a school clerk were waiting.

Carter then brought a wooden paddle and smacked the girl on the behind. The girl's mom then said that the principal started to scream. She then looked around and got nervous after seeing that the area lacks surveillance cameras.

She said that was when she figured out that the only thing she could do was film it to expose the abuse. The mother said that she did not know what to do and worried that her immigration status would be questioned if she intervened.

"I sacrificed my daughter, so all parents can realize what's happening in this school," she said as reported by Daily Mail.

She then took her daughter to a doctor and recorded red marks and paddles made by the hitting. The mother said she is now worried about what psychological harm has been caused to her child.

The attorney for the mother, Brett Provinsky, said the State Attorney's Office is currently reviewing the case to see if they could push for criminal charges against Carter and Cecilia Self, the school clerk seen in the video.

Self was designated to translate for the mother. However, the mother said that she had failed to do so.

Provinsky said the incident is aggravated battery since they use a weapon that can cause severe physical harm. Neither Carter nor the school has yet to make any comments.

Posted on its website, the school district said the superintendent shall impose sanctions for the infractions of rules, excluding corporal punishment.

U.S. Schools Corporal Punishments

Florida is one of the states implementing corporal punishments in schools. However, the practice is not allowed in the Hendry County School district, where the incident occurred.

In North Carolina, the last remaining school to impose corporal punishment voted to ban the practice in October 2018.

A study published in the journal Social Policy Report revealed that in Mississippi and Alabama, Black children in several school districts were more than five times as likely to be punished than white children, The New York Times reported.

Tennessee and Louisiana have also passed a measure banning corporal punishment among students with disabilities.

Officials in Tennessee discovered that children with disabilities were being punished at a higher rate than other children in about 80 percent of the state's public schools doing the same practice.

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