""He always could see the possibility for students and their teachers and their families," said Diane Watson, a former ally on the school board who went on to serve in the state Legislature and Congress. "You could follow him because you knew that he chose to do the right thing for the young people.""
""It is child-beating and we should eliminate policies that permit child-beating," Docter said. "Administrators and teachers should not be able to do what a Marine Corps drill sergeant is prohibited from doing.""
Robert Docter died at home in Northridge on Nov. 3 at age 97 from neurological complications. He served on the Los Angeles school board from 1969 to 1977, taught for 56 years at Cal State Northridge, and served for decades as a regional Salvation Army leader. As a board member he led a 1975 4-3 vote to ban corporal punishment in the district, calling it child-beating and urging alternatives. He pushed quickly and aggressively for campus integration through busing and sacrificed his political career in that effort. The corporal punishment ban took several years to fully take effect as the district developed other disciplinary methods.
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