told KPRC<\/a>, our sister station in Houston, that neither he nor the boy\u2019s mother gave permission for him to be physically punished.<\/p>\n\u201cIt just really hurt real bad. I was running across the room going in circles, and everybody was just laughing,\u201d Lopez said. \u201cI was like, dang, come on bro, it\u2019s already embarrassing I\u2019m getting hit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lopez joined the Memorial High School football team in Port Arthur less than a month ago.<\/p>\n
He said the reason he missed school was because he didn\u2019t have a ride after his mother was seriously injured in a crash.<\/p>\n
Lopez said his coach was furious with his pant color and that he didn\u2019t have Lopez\u2019s phone number. <\/p>\n
Lopez\u2019s father told KPRC the call from the school office was something he\u2019d never heard before. <\/p>\n
\u201cNever whooping without my permission. I don\u2019t even whoop on my kid,\u201d Lopez\u2019s father said. <\/p>\n
Corporal punishment is defined as deliberate infliction of physical pain by hitting, paddling, spanking, slapping or any other physical force used as a means of discipline. <\/p>\n
Port Arthur ISD said in part it\u2019s \u201cpolicy doesn\u2019t require a parent to provide advance written consent before corporal punishment may be administered.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the Texas Education Code, if parents or guardians do not want corporal punishment to be used on their children, they have to sign a written statement and send it to the district\u2019s board of trustees.<\/p>\n
KSAT reached out to more than 15 local school districts around the San Antonio area to find out about their corporal punishment protocols. Almost all of them responded.<\/p>\n
The following school districts have prohibited corporal punishment:<\/p>\n
Northside ISD<\/p>\n
North East ISD<\/p>\n
San Antonio ISD<\/p>\n
Edgewood ISD <\/p>\n
East Central ISD <\/p>\n
South San Antonio ISD<\/p>\n
Southside ISD<\/p>\n
Medina Valley ISD <\/p>\n
Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD<\/p>\n
Somerset ISD<\/p>\n
Boerne ISD<\/p>\n
Harlandale ISD<\/p>\n
Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD told KSAT it voted last month to remove the option from its handbook.<\/p>\n
Somerset ISD said it prohibited corporal punishment in 2023, however it has not updated its online student handbook, which still says corporal punishment is allowed. <\/p>\n
Read also:<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 A story out of Port Arthur in Southeast Texas is getting a lot of attention…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[143970,143968,22782,6544,163,6545,84235,22693,16868,143969,4042,82,84,83,36654,4119,142844,96878,102749,2810],"class_list":["post-412576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-boerne-isd","tag-corporal-punishment","tag-east-central-isd","tag-edgewood-isd","tag-education","tag-harlandale-isd","tag-medina-valley-isd","tag-neisd","tag-nisd","tag-port-arthur-isd","tag-saisd","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-schertz-cibolo-universal-city-isd","tag-schools","tag-somerset-isd","tag-south-san-antonio-isd","tag-southside-isd","tag-texas-education-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}