A new epidemic of physical abuse is sweeping the American school system, and it is called “the butt slapping.”
This horrific trend reared its ugly backside at Pine View Middle School in Land O’Lakes, Florida. Thankfully, one brave parent alerted local reporters to the danger.
“I never heard of it until it happened to my daughter,” said Tonya Thompson, mother of an eighth grade girl at Pine View, in a statement to a local news channel. “I was very shocked.”
The news channel ran the story under the thought-provoking headline, “Butt slapping: Fun or sexual harassment.” Although unclarified, that is likely intended to be a question, not a choice.
Vowing to get to the bottom of the matter and nip this scandal in the bud, school principal Jennifer Crosby launched a swift probe. The administration would not fall behind in the protection of its students’ behinds, she said.
Still, Crosby could find no evidence that butt slapping was taking its horrid toll.
“Mrs. Thompson shared what happened to her daughter and we investigated, and didn’t have any incidents at this point,” she said in a statement.
Thompson was sore about Crosby’s denial, and butted heads with the principal over the matter of the sore butts.
“It was in other district schools also,” insisted Thompson, who claimed she had talked to other students about all the butt slapping. “I think kids think it’s funny and they don’t understand the gravity of it.”
The students — who most certainly and quite rightly do not understand the gravity of butt slapping — appear to turn the other cheek and enjoy reciprocal slaps, according to brief videos obtained by the local news channel.
Still, the butt-slapping deniers have slammed the back door shut on the possibility that is this actually a trend. Administrators are butting out for the time being — a back-handed acknowledgment that there is absolutely nothing to this story.
With any hope, they are correct, and the dangerous fad has already come to an end.
A rear end.
Pine View did not respond to a request for comment.