A 15-year-old sophomore running back at Port Arthur Memorial High School says an assistant football coach hit him with a paddle three times during a Saturday practice, just two weeks after he arrived at the school. Noah Lopez missed that practice because his mother had been injured in a car crash and could not drive him, an explanation the family says was communicated to coaches beforehand.
The allegation, first detailed by the San Antonio Express-News, has thrust Port Arthur Independent School District into a statewide conversation about corporal punishment in Texas schools, and it comes as WDTV 5 and other outlets pick up the story of a coach who allegedly used a paddle as a disciplinary tool during practice. Lopez has indicated plans to transfer out of Port Arthur ISD to Conroe ISD following the incident, according to the same report.
District Says No Advance Consent Was Required
Port Arthur ISD Superintendent Mark Porterie released an official statement in August confirming the district is reviewing the incident and that the Board of Trustees will formally revisit its corporal punishment policy. The statement, reported by the Houston Chronicle, noted that corporal punishment is currently an authorized disciplinary technique that does not require advance written consent from parents. Porterie said the district remains committed to maintaining discipline while ensuring policies are administered fairly and consistently, per the same report.
Under Port Arthur ISD's board-adopted discipline policy, corporal punishment is permitted by default unless a parent or guardian submits a signed, written opt-out statement to the principal for that school year. Lopez's mother says she never provided prior consent for physical punishment and refused to sign paperwork presented to her after the paddling occurred, according to KFDM. She also reported that her son suffered severe bruises and emotional distress, the station said.
Southeast Texas Districts Mostly Allow Paddling By Default
A regional survey conducted by KFDM across 17 school districts in Southeast Texas found that almost all of them operate under opt-out corporal punishment policies similar to Port Arthur ISD's. Bridge City ISD was identified as the only district among those surveyed that explicitly prohibits corporal punishment, according to the station's reporting, underscoring how closely Port Arthur ISD's rules track regional norms rather than standing apart from them.
That default framework traces back to state law. Under Texas Education Code § 37.0011, public school districts statewide are legally permitted to use corporal punishment — defined as the deliberate infliction of physical pain by hitting, paddling, spanking, or slapping — as long as the local school board has adopted a policy authorizing it. The statute explicitly excludes physical pain caused by reasonable physical activities associated with athletic training or physical education from that definition, leaving districts wide latitude over how coaches discipline athletes.
Opt-Out Paperwork Must Be Renewed Every Year
According to the Texas Education Agency's Parental Rights Handbook, updated in August, parents in districts that allow corporal punishment must submit a separate signed written prohibition every school year to keep their child from being paddled; a prior year's opt-out does not carry forward. The handbook also notes that parents may revoke a previously filed opt-out statement in writing at any point during the school year, meaning the rules cut both ways for families trying to track their rights from one year to the next.
Efforts to change that statewide framework have repeatedly stalled in Austin. In April 2023, the Texas House of Representatives defeated House Bill 772 in a 58-86 vote, rejecting a bipartisan proposal that would have banned corporal punishment in all public schools statewide, according to the Texas Tribune. That failure kept Texas among 19 states that still allow public school staff to use corporal punishment, leaving discipline decisions strictly to local school boards. A separate proposal, House Bill 1096, introduced during the 89th Legislative Session in 2025, sought to require districts that permit corporal punishment to send annual email notices detailing parental opt-out rights and to report all disciplinary physical force to the state's Public Education Information Management System broken down by race, ethnicity, and special education status, according to BillTrack50.
A Pattern With Documented Disparities
The scale of paddling in Texas schools has drawn scrutiny before. Data compiled by the Intercultural Development Research Association and cited by the Texas Tribune found that during the 2017-2018 academic year, 1,165 Texas public schools administered corporal punishment to nearly 13,000 students, with Black students and students with special needs disproportionately subjected to physical discipline across the state.
The dispute over Lopez's paddling also arrives amid heightened state oversight of high school football practices more broadly. In August, the University Interscholastic League instituted a new mandatory safety requirement forcing football programs statewide to measure Wet Bulb Globe Temperature before outdoor practices, according to Houston Public Media — a reminder that practice conditions for student-athletes are already subject to strict state rules, even as the authority to paddle those same athletes remains largely a matter of local school board discretion.
