Uneven Decline: Visualizing District-Level Persistence of School Corporal Punishment In Arkansas

Background and Purpose: School corporal punishment (CP) is inconsistent with trauma-informed and positive school climate approaches, which emphasize safety, trust, and non-violent responses to student behavior. Although the use of CP in public schools has declined nationally, it remains legal and concentrated in a small number of U.S. states, including Arkansas. In Arkansas, state-level trends suggest substantial reductions in CP use over time; however, aggregate data may obscure meaningful local variation. This study examines district-level reports of corporal punishment in Arkansas over a 15-year period and asks: Where has use declined, where has it remained stable, and in which districts has it increased? Guided by a commitment to democratizing access to public data, this project explores how spatial and visual analytic tools can make inequities in school discipline more visible to researchers, policymakers, and communities.

Methods: This study uses a longitudinal, district-level dataset of all traditional public-school districts in Arkansas from 2010 to 2025. Annual reports of CP from publicly available state department of education data were merged with district enrollment data to construct standardized rates (CP reports per 1,000 students). Descriptive trend analyses and linear growth models were used to estimate district-specific changes in CP rates over time. Districts were classified as declining (β₁ < −0.5), stable (−0.5 ≤ β₁ ≤ 0.5), or increasing (β₁ > 0.5) based on slope estimates from district-level linear models of annual change in corporal punishment rates. To support public dissemination and enhance accessibility, findings were integrated into an ArcGIS StoryMap, enabling interactive geographic visualization of CP reports across districts over time.

Results: Consistent with prior research, statewide CP reports declined substantially over the study period (from 31,847 reports in 2011 to 3,518 reports in 2025). However, district-level analyses reveal persistent and uneven patterns of use. While the majority of districts (n = 152) experienced declining rates, 47 districts remained stable, and 15 districts demonstrated increasing reports of CP over time. Despite representing a small fraction of districts, districts with increasing reports of CP account for a growing share of CP incidents statewide, exceeding 30% of all cases by 2024. In 2024–2025, over 50% of CP reports were concentrated in just 15 of 232 public school districts. In some districts, CP rates increased even as enrollment declined, suggesting intensification of disciplinary practices relative to student population.

Conclusions and Implications: Findings underscore that students’ exposure to punitive, non–trauma-informed disciplinary practices are unevenly distributed across districts, raising concerns about inequitable access to safe and supportive school environments. Despite overall declines, the use of CP has become increasingly concentrated within specific districts over time. By leveraging publicly available administrative data and interactive mapping tools, this project advances the democratization of knowledge, making hidden patterns of disciplinary practice visible and accessible to communities and policymakers. Results highlight the need for district-level interventions to align school discipline policies with trauma-informed and positive school climate frameworks. More broadly, this work illustrates how applied, spatially informed research can strengthen democratic engagement by translating complex data into actionable insight.