 You need a financial advisor with the freedom to focus on your specific needs. Whatever your goals, Reid Potter can create a game plan tailored to you. Call Reid at 432-0777 at Pikeville, Kentucky to learn more. Following an administrative regulation from the Kentucky Board of Education requiring school districts to create a formal policy regarding corporal punishment, every school district in the Commonwealth has now banned the use of corporal punishment. We have been advocating at the legislative level for quite a few years to get corporal punishment banned in the entire Commonwealth via legislation. What actually ended up happening was the Kentucky Department of Education earlier this year decided to put an administrative rule in place that basically made districts create formal policies around whether they would allow for corporal punishment or not. And when school districts were kind of made to discuss it, made to think it through, made to make a decision one way or the other, they all chose to ban it in their schools. In the 2022-2023 school year, there were five incidents of corporal punishment all within Pike County. Studies have linked corporal punishment to increased behavioral problems, increased aggression and defiance, and increased risk of mental illness and adolescence and drug and alcohol abuse. We don't believe that schools should be a place of fear for students. We think that students should be able to trust the adults that they're around at school. And corporal punishment does not encourage trust between the person who's inflicting it and the person who's receiving the corporal punishment. So, you know, like I said before, it's associated with kind of the things that, you know, we're trying to work against. You know, I think a lot of teachers are really well-meaning and they're trying to correct behavior. But actually in the long term, this, you know, increases misbehavior and increases aggression. And that's not good for any Kentucky students, including the students that have to be around these children who are experiencing these things. So, you know, we just don't think it has a place in our schools. And I think students will be healthier. And over the long term, I think that, you know, it will help behavior improve, actually. Reporting for Mountain Top News, I'm Brianna Robinson.