A Florida principal was seen in a very disturbing video hitting a six year old girl with a wooden paddle.
Central Elementary School Principal Melissa Carter is seen in the video using a paddle to spank the student while the school clerk, Cecilia Self, holds the girl’s hands down.
After the beating, Carter told the child, “If your mom wants to come up to the school and spank you, and we can watch, that’s going to happen.”
The girl’s mother told CBS Miami that before she was brought into Carter’s office, she noticed there weren’t any surveillance cameras there so she secretly recorded the incident.
She said she felt she couldn’t intervene and stop the beating because she is undocumented.
“The hatred with which she hit my daughter, I mean, it was a hatred that, really, I’ve never hit my daughter like she hit her. I had never hit her,” she told WINK news. “I sacrificed my daughter, so all the parents can realize what’s happening in this school.”
Corporal punishment is legal in schools in Florida. But the family attorney Brent Probinsky told CBS News it is not legal in Hendry County, where the incident occurred.
“I think the mom was intimidated. The mom didn’t expect this to happen. It happened very quickly and the mom said I was so astounded, I was so shocked, I was just frozen for a few moments when she was paddling my child,” Probinsky said.
Carter is now on administrative leave and the matter is being investigated by the State Attorney. Probinsky wants Carter to be arrested and never be allowed to work at another school.
