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By Guy Page
In response to public outcry, a Bennington County school district is taking heat for what parents say is a recently-announced ban on saying the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union includes Mt. Anthony Union High School in Bennington, and schools in Pownal, Arlington, Shaftsbury, and Sandgate. According to the story reported by News 10 out of Albany, NY, the controversy began when parents learned their children attending Shaftsbury Elementary School would no longer have the option of saying the pledge.
At present, the supervisory union has an ‘opt out’ policy for students and staff. The proposed ban would stop any public recitation of the Pledge. One parent said her daughters were marked ‘tardy’ for saying the Pledge before school started.
Of the 29 comments beneath the News 10 story, none supported a ban. Some welcomed the ‘opt out.’
In response, Superintendent James R. Culkeen issued statement saying that due to friction, the opt-out policy should be replaced with a “more consistent practice” – apparently meaning, no pledge at all.
The public and school board will discuss the topic at the next school board meeting October 8.
Culkeen’s entire statement appears below:
The Southwest Vermont Union Elementary School District and Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union have not banned the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance. We are all a part of the same community. Within our community, there are a variety of voices and opinions. When it comes to reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in schools, some families are in full support, some families find different points of controversy, and some families care very little about the subject. There are reasons that validate all of those stances.
For the last several years, the principals of each of the schools in the SVSU have been empowered to decide if the Pledge of Allegiance would be recited in the individual buildings. This is not new. Across all schools where the Pledge was recited, students and staff have the choice to opt out.
On its face, the ”opt-out” choice seems reasonable. But as we’ve learned, when students do so, it highlights differences between our kids. It disrupts the community and excludes kids who just want to be a part of their classrooms. Classroom teachers, building Principals, and school staff should not be leading activities during instructional time that make our kids feel separate from their classmates, no matter how well intentioned the activities may be.
It is now clear that a consistent practice needs to be developed across our schools, to address all of the various points of view on this matter, while fostering a stronger sense of community among our students. The SVUESD will be undertaking this work for the seven schools under its purview, and encourage the other member districts of the SU to do the same.
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Categories: Education
The Pledge of Allegiance is being banned because the NEA promoted and supports global citizenship. Under this model, the United Nations is the sovereign power over individual nation states.
I fully agree with this entire “opt out” option and I believe that all those (adult) traitors to their nation after “opting out” of their allegiance to the USA should be then “escorted out” of this sovereign nation right into a country of their choosing where their lifestyle & belief systems, opinions, and personal freedoms can be better met.
Yeah. Right. Bwahahahaha………
Wow! Say the pledge or get deported. Heil Gaffney!
You’re dead wrong. Try reading the Supreme Court decision on the freedom NOT to pledge allegiance: West Virginia v. Barnette.
While I am generally left-leaning, this is misguided. Opt-out is the way to go. One of the few things we have to unite us IS the pledge to support our country (and that includes criticizing it when we don’t think it lives up to its own stated values, whichever side we are on). If you aren’t ready to pledge allegiance, fine, but having the default be to show support is how you build civic engagement and a sense of unity. Sigh…
And I believe having the US Constitution in hand, making it a priority to understand it, comprehending that millions of one’s patriotic fellow citizens fought, became maimed, or died in preserving it, and being grateful for having at least had the near-sacred opportunity to reside within such a nation that (at least until the left pronounced Marxism/Communism the way to proceed) upheld personal liberties & freedoms as the intrinsic rights they are……… is how one best shows support. Indeed, sigh. Big time.
Perchance if US History & your aforementioned civics were taught again in US schools?
How about the AOE gives parents a tuition voucher to choose the school they believe best serves the needs and wishes of their own children? When one school bans ‘the pledge’, and another doesn’t, parents and their kids can choose one or the other.
Classroom teachers, building Principals, and school staff should not be leading activities that make our kids feel separate from their classmates, no during instructional time matter how well intentioned the activities may be. NEWS FLASH THE KIDS WHO WANT TO SAY THE PLEDGE (THAT YOU’RE BLOCKING FROM DOING) ARE FEELING SEPERATED FROM THERE CLASS!!!!!
It’s actually very potentially unlawful and treasonous.
Proceed at their own risk should Trump/Vance become elected.
Sounds like a plan to me!
To all that have memorized and said the POA in school in the good days, you aare in danger of staying in Vermont. The NEA and others don’t want RIF-raf in the state, move out, or we’ll tax you out.
VDC Comment posted by SOUTHERN TOM, not BURLINGTON TOM; using first name only
Hey US history expert “briancostello” who STILL doesn’t possess the courage to leave his “reply” icon in place — how aren’t you yet aware that being a tritor to the “flag” is actually potentially punishable by DEATH?
Treason & sedition & subversive activities & BETRAYING the ALLEGIANCE to your country are each punishable by death or imprisonment as per a lil’ document called the US CONSTITUTION – and if you are a “teacher” in a US public school engaged in such activities, I was pretty much giving these defectors/apostates a giant PASS!
Just get OUT. Your pleasure becomes MY pleasure!
You are welcome!
Foiled. Again.
So now opting out of saying the pledge of allegiance is treasonous? Now you’re calling for executions? You are a dangerous person.
By the way, I don’t know how the reply button works. Sometimes it appears, sometimes it doesn’t. I believe it should be on for all replies. Maybe someone here can tell me.
The Southwest Supervisory Union is one place where a group of Red White and Blue parents should gather at least once a week at each school when kids arrive and encourage a Pledge of Allegiance before kids walk in the doors – or even just a parent group. I’d recommend it happen in many Vermont school districts. If a HS Senior in Central Vermont could prompt his classmates to join him for this simple ritual, it can certainly spread elsewhere.
If it’s a public school, being funded with government money, then the Pledge of Allegiance should be stated every morning before class starts, and the only flag on the flag pole should be the ” United States Of America “, if all this offends you then maybe your living in the wrong country ……………………………….
Wake up people, they hate you and your beliefs, and by the sounds of it, they hate this country !!
If you want to fly any other flag, fly it at your house.
You’re recommending compelled speech.
That sort of thing is actually frowned upon in the USA.
So if the government wants to start recognizing opting out it’s time to include vaxx and tax opt outs no questions asked. Any others folks care to recommend?
Either we’re all in or we’re not. No playing favorites just to shame the country.
I believe the Pledge is an important part of our history and is a way to express national pride. I also believe the “under god” phrase that was added in during the Cold War should be removed. We are all not religious, but are Americans.
I’m surprised no one else mentioned this….
The most disturbing part of the story was the following ” when students do so, it highlights differences between our kids”. Really, you all want the kids to be Borg???? Kids are different that’s what makes them so great!
One of the parents at the school stated “it’s just a flag”. That got me thinking about two WWII vets I met in my younger years. Both separated from their families for years, set to fight in god awful areas, combating a vicious enemy. Just for a flag? The young men and women who did multiple tours in Iraq and Afghan. The sacrifices they made. Just for a flag? That flag and what it stands for is what makes this country great. Flawed but great nonetheless. Leave the pledge as is.
Is that one of the same people who state that a developing human in utero is JUST “tissue”?
Asking for all the future children of the world.
You people need to study THE PROJECT FOR A NEW AMERICAN CENTURY.
“If you’re not proud of our country, go to a better place. Please, we don’t want you or need you. Do us all a favor and just leave quietly” is what the principal should have said.
It’s yet another example of a few dictating policy to the majority. Here in Vermont the loudest left wing voices have the floor.
Vote!
I say that any school that allows this loses it’s funding. Make it hurt.
I remember teaching high school biology in 1972. One student objected to the pledge. We never compelled him to recite it. I wonder what would happen if students gathered to say the pledge on their own. I might invite some student leaders to initiate that strategy.
“The enemy is already here”. – Dan Bongino
And are in our school systems and have been degrading out culture and history for years.
“The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their own history”. – George Orwell
“Looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has not been a march towards anarchy but towards the imposition of slavery. We may be heading not for a general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity”. – George Orwell
No Mark, you are dead wrong – no one on here was referring to students “choosing” to abstain & I specifically wrote ADULT within one of my comments, thereby obviously referring to teachers & staff who refuse. Since this is an issue that is allowed left up to states’ to decide & VT apparently has no particular policy set, I again recommend that those adults who very ignorantly refuse to recognize the establishment of this Republic & the massive sacrifices made by the millions who fought/fight to preserve it, and who therefore set a poor example for the youngsters in their charge, who further possibly violate the terms of their employment/contract, and who potentially may be guilty of imbibing in subversive activities as described above —— that their desire to denigrate the USA in their position of “authority” in loco parentis – ought to be met in kind by the wishes of the majority of the populace who do not want their public taxpayer-funded impressionable youngsters exposed to such influence and they be dealt with accordingly — which has also already been described.
Interesting commentary. We are hosting, down in my neck of the woods, a Constitution class by Patriot Academy.
I am a Free Speech Absolutist because I found that when you start making exceptions, it opens the door to complete undermining. My father used to say, and I hated it, “if I give you an inch, you take a mile”. Man, was he right.
Many of us look at patriotism and how it defines who we are. I know I do. At our most recent Meet the Candidates event, there were 45 adults in a meeting room proudly, loudly proclaiming the pledge. It was a STIRRING moment for me. To be surrounded by other people who felt the pledge that strongly.
But short of actual treasonous activities as outlined in Article III section 3, “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”, abstaining from saying the pledge is NOT treasonous. It may be unpatriotic. But it is free speech as noted by “Mark” in the case law of West Virginia v. Barnette.
It is sad. Depressing. Demoralizing for sure. To see so many disparage this country. But isn’t it just showing us that our country is failing and that indeed education is the primary cause. Can we do better? Of course. I’m not sure we can, with the current scourge we must deal with, but we can, we have, and we will. We, us older folks, may never see it. It will take either a catastrophic event that puts “Helene” to shame or decades of different leadership. So, I’m not holding my breath… but I am doing what I can. As should we all.
Just my two cents worth.
I would publish that as a commentary. Terrific, Pam, and proud to have been among the 45.
Nietzche stated “Liberal institutions cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no further injurers of freedom than liberal institutions. One knows indeed what their ways bring: they undermine the will, they level mountain and valley,….they make men small, cowardly, & hedonistic………Liberalism: in other words, herd animalization.”
The same is of course true with fawning over such liberalism in print – burning a flag is also considered freedom of speech. Trump wants to make it illegal. I never used to agree. I do now.
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it IS one. Betraying the allegiance to your country is not pledging allegiance to your country. I agree. with Trump now & I agree that such an act led by “educators” in a publicly funded institution is ALSO correct: Betrayal to the nation. Deception. Potential treason.
Don’t agree to continuing to acquiesce to leftist guile on here & challenging patriotic, loyal Americans while your verbose charlatans who preach free speech violate damn near every federal law, every election law, and every civil rights law as you foolishly protect their deceptions through free speech.
“According to a recent report from the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy’s Homeschool Research Lab, data from 21 states show that all but two of them saw growth in the number of homeschooled students for the 2023-24 school year.”
“Two states saw a decrease in total homeschooling numbers, New Hampshire and Vermont, but a significant caveat applies to New Hampshire. Due to the state’s Education Freedom Account, a program launched in 2021 that allows homeschooling students to receive public funds, those homeschooled students participating in the EFA program are not included in the state’s homeschool data. Therefore, it is probable that the number of homeschooled students is higher than what is being reported.” – – Patriot Post
RIP Kris Kristofferson, “Freedom’s Just Another Word For Nothin’ left to Lose, and Nothin’ Ain’t Worth Nothin’… But It’s Free”.
Not in Vermont!
$2.7 Billion to ‘educate’ (indoctrinate) 72,093 K thru 12 students – 50% of whom can’t read, write or do arithmetic to grade level.
Hey folks… push for the H.405 School Choice bill to pass.
And spare me the sentiment that lobbying for H.405 is a waste of time. Is it a waste of your children’s well-being too?
Just do it.
Mr. Eshelman, you know I will be pushing it, regardless of what dark closet they stuff me in, should I get the opportunity to serve.
Not that it can’t be sponsored again but didn’t H.405 die on the wall at the close of the 23-24 biennium? Art Peterson is out but I’m sure someone else could take up the mantle and reintroduce this bill.