I have NEVER heard of this and it outrages me as a parent that such an action could be taken against a child.

I agree with everyone above - contact every agency, politician, paper and news group you can think of. Getting media attention may help expedite a response!

I wish you the best of luck and hope you'll be successful, very soon, with this movement.

That site is edreform.com. They are the Center for Education Reform. They have a Grassroots Action Center & will find the names/addresses etc. of reps. from your local & state governments. There is also a large list of grassroots movement groups from North Carolina. I just looked quickly, so I don't know what each's "issue" is, but I hope this will be of some help to you. I would really like to see this changed.

This is reprehensible.
I believe that what you do w/your own children is your own business, as long as you are not causing harm. But, I'll tell you, if someone else struck my child, there would be a whole lot of &*%@ to pay!
I can't believe this is allowed in this day & age. If I were in your position, I would be writing letters to every State Senate & House Member & contacting any T.V. & newspaper reporter I could get ahold of. But, like Shawn says, you do need to have all of your ducks in a line. Keep copies of everything you send out & get back. Log telephone calls & who you spoke with. I saw a piece of a show on PBS about education reform. I'll have to google the organization, but they are involved in changing the ways schools operate. I'll look for that site tonight & post it back here later, if you are interested.

This is tough for a pto because it could actually turn ugly and force the group into dissolving....experience here! To take a very heated topic and want it to become a pto issue you really need the whole membershio behind you which will never happen. A pto supports a school but in other ways, it is however very important that they stay on task. Most pto's will tell you that it could get very ugly and very negative if they had to be in the middle of issues like this.
Your best bet would to start your own committee and state the reason for your committee. I did this a few years back when we were looking at improving parent involvement in our school, we got alot done that way.

[ 09-16-2006, 12:11 PM: Message edited by: pals ]

Most bylaws of PTOs have some sort of clause that prohibits them from becoming involved in these types of issues due to their political nature. Having said that...there is nothing stopping you "all" (i.e. whomever is interested) from forming a grass roots political action committee. It will take some doing, but if you build it they will come. I believe it costs 100 bucks to register as a political action committee and you must have a president, and some other offices.
Your other options are to circulate petitions (at grocery stores, at bus stops, at meetings, not PTO,) and present them in an organized manner to the seated political body (either board of supervisors, mayor's office, board of ed) to forward your concerns.
PTOs becoming entangled in these types of activities as a body can become controversial (should they promote the candidate that is running on this platform--as an example) and very time consuming taking them away from their original mission of creating a community within the school.
We had our first President raised the issue of the curriculum choice for our math program and her opinion that it wasn't the most appropriate and until we got that the issue out of the meeting place it caused all sorts of a stir/bad feelings/teachers hearing about parents comments (which of course they will). I firmly believe that school policy and procedural issues should stay out of the PTO...but everyone has their own thoughts I'm sure...
d

There is no way I would stand for anyone touching/hitting my children!!! A parent spanking their child (within limits & means) is one thing, another adult hitting a child NO WAY! My kids would no longer be in any school that allowed an adult to hit them. I do not know what you can do but I sure would be calling every agency, gov't body, attorney, press, etc. that I could to find out. Hope you can put an end to this horrible abuse.