MY EXPLANATION OF WHY I VOTED TO END CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN KATY ISD:

I decided to vote to end "corporal punishment" in the Katy schools because there was a coach at a junior high who was paddling black students in very high numbers. (Mr. Steger was incorrect about how many students had been paddled the previous year.)  As a school board member, I too had asked for the records that were kept on paddling.  I also suggested several times that this coach be stopped, but no one would take care of the matter.

So when the opportunity arose to vote the activity out, I took it.

I had also been a "crossover teacher" at Booker T. Washington in the early 1970's, and on the first day of school I was appalled by the fact that all the black teachers who remained at the school stood in the hall between classes with their personalized paddles and gave both boys and girls a swat on the behind as they passed by! 

I suppose the students at that school were used to that, but I was not!

I wrote a letter to the Katy Times to protest Mr. Steger's remarks.  In it I assured the public that I had been spanked as a child and that I also spanked my own children!  That is my privilege as their parent.  But that's not the same as having some teacher or coach somewhere giving my child a swat just for the hell of it.  They should not have that privilege.