By admin 
PORT ARTHUR, Texas (Gray News) – A high school student in Texas said his assistant football coach hit him with a paddle during practice as a disciplinary tool.
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Noah Lopez, a sophomore at Memorial High School in Port Arthur, had only been at the school for two weeks when he was called into his coach’s office during Saturday practice.
Lopez told KPRC that the head coach had pulled him aside when he got to practice and asked him why he wasn’t in school Friday. Lopez told his coach that it was because his mother had been in a car crash and couldn’t take him to school.
When the coach then realized Lopez was also wearing the wrong-colored football pants, Lopez was called into the office, where several of his coaches had gathered. There, Lopez said his coaches told him he had three strikes against him: one for wearing the wrong-colored pants, another for missing a school day and a third for not giving an assistant coach his number.
Lopez told KPRC that he was then told to put his hands on the table and was hit with a paddle three times.
“It just really hurt real bad,” Lopez said.
He said it was one of the most humiliating moments of his life.
“Like, I was running across the room, going in circles and everybody was just laughing, and I was like, dang. Like, come on bro, it’s already embarrassing, I’m getting hit,” he said.
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Lopez’s dad, Noah Lopez, said he should have been notified.
“They should have called me and said, ‘Hey, I got your son here. I’m about to pop him. I’m just letting you know.’ You know, they didn’t let me know,” Noah Lopez said.
The Port Arthur Independent School District released a statement saying it is reviewing the circumstances surrounding the incident.
However, it also said corporal punishment is “an authorized discipline-management technique” within the district and parents do not have to be notified before corporal punishment is given. Instead, parents must sign a written statement given to the principal if they do not want corporal punishment used on their child.
Noah Lopez said that he did not sign anything allowing corporal punishment to be used on his son and believes that parents should be notified every time it’s used, regardless.
Texas law does allow corporal punishment in schools, but it is up to the school district’s board to decide how it is used.
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