GERRARDSTOWN, W.Va. – Parents of a West Virginia middle schooler are suing their school district and its officials after a teacher made their son walk as a form of punishment.

Neva and William Savage filed a lawsuit against the Berkeley County Board of Education, Berkeley County Schools, the superintendent as well as a principal and a teacher at Mountain Ridge Intermediate School alleging violations of the state’s law against corporal punishment, the Martinsburg Journal-News reports.

The Savages filed the lawsuit in Berkeley County Circuit Court in February, and the case has since moved to federal court, according to the news site.

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The lawsuit alleges fifth-grade teacher Jennifer Barrow forced the Savages’ son to walk from one light pole on the school’s campus to another repeatedly for 15 to 30 minutes at a time starting last October.

When the weather turned in November, the punishment moved to walking inside, where the Savages allege their son aggravated a pre-existing heel injury, and that made him emotional and unhappy, the news site reports.

The family also alleges they’ve become “victims of harassment, retaliation and threats” from the school because they pulled their son from classes over the punishment in late November.

“Section three of the West Virginia Procedures Manual for Expected Behavior in Safe and Supportive Schools ‘reiterates the requirements of state code that no physical punishment of any kind can be inflicted upon a student. Prohibited physical punishment includes, among other things, “requiring physical activity as a punishment,”’ the complaint reads,” according to the Journal-News.

Attorneys for Berkeley County Schools contend the punishment doesn’t rise to the level of corporal punishment, as defined by case law, and filed a motion to dismiss the case March 13.

In a memorandum supporting their position, in which school lawyers misspell the family’s name as Javage instead of Savage, the district points out that the boy’s heel problems do not constitute a “severe injury,” nor was there an “application of force” involved – both legal elements of similar cases in the past.

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“It is questionable that requiring the student to walk for periods of 15 to 30 minutes qualifies as an ‘application of force,’” the Journal-News quoted from the memorandum.

“Loss of sleep due to heel pain with no medical care noted does not rise to the level of a severe injury,” the memo read.

There’s also apparently a distinction between state code and the constitution in that the latter requires the act to be “inspired by malice or sadism,” which district attorneys do not believe is the case in Berkeley County, the Journal-News reports.

Cases that rose to the level of a constitutional violation include a Cleveland teacher who slammed a student’s head against a chalkboard and choked the girl because she forgot a pencil for class, the memo notes.