CLOVER, S.C.,None — Warrants are out for a Clover area middle school teacher accused of spanking several students in class.
Late Thursday, Eyewitness News learned that 48-year-old Chris Petrasek faces charges of assault and battery. Petrasek is a seventh-grade math teacher at Oakridge Middle School.
Sheriff's deputies said the alleged incidents were reported on Friday, Nov. 18. It apparently happened several times from September through November.
The students said they were made to lay across the teacher's lap and were spanked on the bottom in front of the class. Another student said he was held by the neck and told to lean over a desk. The students claim Petrasek hit them with his hand. They told police it stung, and they were embarrassed.
The spankings were the result of students talking out of turn or making low grades, the police report said.
"At least three students said that this particular teacher spanked them," said Clover Schools spokesman Mychal Frost. "It apparently did happen in a classroom setting."
The school district sent the teacher home on paid administrative leave after a meeting of school officials.
"The students were questioned, the teacher was questioned, and again the teacher was questioned on that following Monday," Frost said
School officials told Channel 9 that the district banned any kind of corporal punishment in 2007.
"It's not tolerated here in any form," Frost said.
Officials with the state education department in Columbia said spanking in schools is legal in South Carolina, but it is a district-by-district decision about whether or not to use it.
York County sheriff's deputies said Petrasek has arranged with a lawyer to turn himself in to face charges on Monday.
WSOC
