Students paddled by public school staff after participating in walkout in Arkansas

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This is what a nationwide walkout looks like. USA TODAY

Public school officials in a rural Arkansas district allegedly "swatted" three students with a paddle as punishment after participating in last week's walkout protests against gun violence.

Jerusalem Greer said her child and two others attending Greenbrier Public Schools in north-central Arkansas received physical punishment after leaving their classroom as part of the nationwide wave of demonstrations known as National Walkout Day.

"My kid and two other students walked out of their rural, very conservative, public school for 17 minutes today,' Greer said on Twitter. "They were given two punishment options. They chose corporal punishment. This generation is not playing around." 

Greenbrier Schools Superintendent Scott Spainhour confirmed to KARK-TV, Little Rock, that three high school students who violated rules by leaving their classroom were given the choice of two disciplinary actions: in-school suspension or the paddle.

Spainhour clarified to the station that the students received punishment for violating the rulebook, not specifically for protesting. Paddling as a disciplinary measure must receive parental approval, he said.

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Wylie Greer, who identified himself as one the students, described the incident in a statement to the Daily Beast, saying he sat on a bench outside the building for 17 minutes — one for each life lost in last month's Florida school shooting. Two peers joined him, and a principal and a dean of students approached, he said.

"I received my punishment during sixth period. The dean of students carried it out while the assistant principal witnessed," Greer, a 17-year-old senior at Greenbrier High School at the school about 35 miles northwest of Little Rock, said in the statement. 

"The punishment was not dealt with malice or cruelty, in fact, I have the utmost respect for all the adults involved. They were merely doing their job as the school board and school policy dictated."

Greer said that "corporal punishment has no place in schools, even if it wasn’t painful to me," and called for an end to such discipline. 

According to KARK-TV, 22 states in the U.S. allow staff to hit students, and 41% of Arkansas students attends a school where such corporal punishment occurs.

Follow Josh Hafner on Twitter: @joshhafner