The Georgia School for Innovation and the Classics is based in the biblically named-town of Hephzibah, and promises to teach students using the Socratic method. But those aren’t the only ways it likes to invoke a sense of antiquity. This week the school sent letters home telling parents they wanted to reintroduce corporal punishment for students, and asking for their consent to have their children struck with a paddle if they misbehave.

The form details how punishment would be administered, explaining that “a student will be taken into an office behind closed doors. The student will place their hands on their knees or piece of furniture and will be struck on the buttocks with a paddle.”

So far, the school’s superintendent, Jody Boulineau, says he has received around 100 consent forms, and of those only a third of parents have agreed to having their child paddled.

Despite the low level of support, the school’s principal, Julie Hawkins, is standing by the policy. Hawkins told the Guardian via email Tuesday that she supports “the parents’ right to make the choice”, adding that she believes paddling can be “an effective form of punishment”. Hawkins compared the policy to spanking, which she pointed out “is legal in all 50 states”, although these laws only refer to punishment that a parent, rather than a teacher, can administer to their own children.

The school has made headlines, particularly as it was only created in 2015 and does not have a long history of using physical punishment. But corporal punishment is more common in than most realize in the United States. Georgia is one of 18 states where corporal punishment remains legal, and although few schools that are legally allowed to administer physical punishments actually do so, there are still around 100,000 students who receive some form of corporal punishment each year. Federal civil rights data show students experienced corporal punishment in more than 4,000 schools nationwide during the 2013-14 school year. The practice is most widespread in Mississippi, where more than 50% of the student body attend schools that use paddling or other physical discipline.

Many countries have a history of corporal punishment in schools but paddling is uniquely popular in the US. It was used as a punishment during slavery, when slave owners would use wooden paddles to strike slaves in such a way that inflicted maximum pain but did not prevent further labour. The Scottish author James Glass Bertram wrote in his 1869 History of the Rod: “In order not to mark the backs of the slaves, and thus deteriorate their value, in Virginia they substituted the pliant strap and the scientific paddle.”

In 2016, over 100 organisations including the National Education Association, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Association of Women signed a petition calling on lawmakers to outlaw the practice.