FCSD phone poll seeks opinions on punishing students

The Forrest City School District is wanting parents to weigh in on the debate to bring some form of corporal punishment back into the school setting as a possible deterrent for misbehaving students. Parents who want their voices heard only need to answer their phone when the district calls.

Members of the Forrest City School Board have discussed the issue for years, and recently FCSD Superintendent Dr. Jerry Woods, who will be leaving June 30, spoke in favor of corporal punishment for the younger students.

According to Tara Thomason, FCSD Director of Communications and Parental and Community Involvement, the feedback from the survey will be used as part of the discussion.

“We are using the School Cast Phone Notification to conduct a phone survey about corporal punishment,” Thomason said. “It is similar to a few months ago when we were asking parents to take a survey about the uniforms on our website, except this time the survey is over the phone and you answer the questions by pressing 1, 2 or 3 on your phone. We ask you to listen to all of the options before you make your selection so that you give the answer that best describes your opinion.

“It is a way for our parents to be heard,” Thomason added. “We made the first calls on Tuesday at 6 p.m. so that people would be home and could answer the calls. We are having another call go out Sunday at 3 p.m. We hope that everyone will take the time to answer the survey.”

On the topic of School Cast, Thomason said the FCSD having accurate phone numbers for parents and guardians is very important.

“We have used the School Cast for surveys in the past because it is a good way to get the word out, but we use it mainly for notifications about inclement weather and updates,” Thomason said. “We’ve used it at the class-level for specific classes at specific schools, for entire schools and the entire district. It is an important tool for us, but we need to have accurate phone numbers to contact parents. We ask that you make sure that the number we have for you is a working number. If it isn’t, you might not hear important messages concerning things like school closing earlier because of the weather.”