Principal’s paddling bruised kids, but he was never arrested, Okla. officials say

Two sets of parents say the paddlings went too far.

Authorities in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma, determined there was enough substance to the allegations to charge Gary L. Gunckel, the principal of schools in tiny Indianola, with two counts of felony child assault, according to court records.

But he was never arrested by the sheriff’s department there, he showed up without a lawyer at his initial court appearance and he was released on his “own recognizance” after the date was set for his next court appearance, the McAlester News-Capital reported.

“This man is principal at Indianola. The situation was corporal punishment,” District Attorney Charles Sullivan said in court Friday, according to the News-Capital. “We arranged for him to turn himself in.”

Gunckel, 50, has retained a lawyer in the case, though, according to court records.

Gunckel, 50, is due back in court on Oct. 12, according to court records, after two parents accused the principal of paddling their boys with “unreasonable force,” to the point that the boys had trouble sitting in chairs, and experienced painful bruising, according to earlier reporting from the News-Capital. “Gary told her he spanked the boys the same way he spanked high school students,” the affidavit states.

The two boys are 10 and 11 years old, The Associated Press reported.

A probable cause affidavit obtained by McClatchy stated that Gunckel apologized to one of the mothers “for busting the boys” after her child allegedly fell to the ground following one of the “swats,” which are “standard punishment” in the district, it continues.

One of the boys told the other he would stab the boy if he continued being mean to a girl in their class, according to the affidavit. The two sets of parents agreed to go to the Pittsburg County Sheriff’s Office with the allegations after both boys experienced similar bruising on their buttocks.

One of the mothers had given Gunckel permission in the past to paddle her son in school.

“This is a situation where corporal punishment went a little too far,” Sullivan told the Capital-News.

Indianola Superintendent Adam Newman told The Associated Press that Gunckel has been placed on administrative leave while charges play themselves out in county court. He is free until then.

Corporal punishment is allowed in schools in 19 states, according to a policy report from the Society for Research in Child Development, an advocacy group. Just one county in western North Carolina, which is still on that list, uses the practice, though, according to the Raleigh News & Observer.

In many school districts in Texas and Oklahoma, as is the policy in Indianola schools, children are only spanked or paddled if parents give the school district written permission to do so.

In March, three Arkansas students say they were paddled for participating in the National School Walkout, in support of stricter gun laws, after the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 were killed and 15 more were wounded.