School panel backs proposal for daily pledge
Responding to a student’s fight to have the Pledge of Allegiance said at Arlington High School, school district officials are now recommending the pledge be recited daily in every school.
The pledge hasn’t been said in unison at the high school in decades, but that would change under a proposal that the School Committee’s policy and procedures subcommittee voted unanimously to recommend Tuesday.
The new policy would require principals at every public school in Arlington to ensure that all students have the opportunity to voluntarily say the pledge during the school day.
If the School Committee adopts the subcommittee’s recommendation, Arlington High School Principal Charles Skidmore said the pledge would be led over the intercom at his school daily so it could be heard and recited in each classroom.
That is what high school senior Sean Harrington had sought when he went before the School Committee last month.
But the committee voted 3-3 in June on a proposal to require the pledge be led in every school, and the motion failed as a result of the deadlock. The vote caused an outcry from some in the community, and some committee members received threats from around the country.
“It’s been an extremely hard three and a half weeks,” said school committee member Judson Pierce, who voted against the June proposal.
School Committee member Leba Heigham also voted against the proposal in June, and Heigham said she still has reservations about whether setting a policy requiring that the pledge be led in all schools could make some students feel as if they have to say it.
State law requires that teachers lead their classes in the Pledge of Allegiance each day, but the state Supreme Judicial Court issued an opinion in 1977 saying that it would be unconstitutional to discipline a teacher or student who chose not to say the pledge. The US Supreme Court has also said that making students recite the pledge is contrary to the First Amendment
.
Heigham questioned what affect it would have on a student who does not wish to say the pledge if a teacher and 23 students in a classroom are saying the pledge.
“Does that become a hostile environment for the child?” Heigham asked.
Arlington resident and former teacher Arthur Edgecomb said if a student does not wish to say the pledge, they don’t have to. But Edgecomb said each student should be given the opportunity.
“I don’t see what the problem is with saying the pledge to the flag,” Edgecomb said. “To me, the Pledge of Allegiance is not a blood oath. What you are basically saying is this is the best country in the world.”
Heigham, Pierce and subcommittee member Cindy Starks voted to recommend a new police that will require each student be given the opportunity to say the pledge each day.
--Brock.globe@gmail.com
Waiting for Twitter to feed in the latest...