How about the school doing some work and setting up a behavioral plan? I mean, I am not saying the kid has no blame but he is five years old. 5 year olds do stuff like that. If he was 15 and did that, completely different story. While the school has the responsibility of the child during the school day, it is up to THEM to establish successful plans to modify or curb behaviors like that. Our children's elementary school has a very active positive behavior plan in place for ALL students. They regularly remind the kids of the rules and acceptable behaviors, create incentives for them to be good school citizens and treat each other well, be respectful, etc. Every Monday, they have a "morning meeting" as a school where the principal goes over the plan again, recognizing students from each grade who showed exemplary embodiment of the 5 basic tenets, with a certificate. When school teachers and administrators encourage these kinds of positive behavior plans, the students work very hard to be successful, and thus there are rarely incidents like this one at their school (which has over 950 students from K-6th grade, by the way). There is essentially no bullying, no fighting, etc.
If a school district feels that corporal punishment is a "necessity", they are not doing their jobs to provide a safe and positive learning environment for their students.
