**Update at end of post**
June 29, 2010
By Todd Stames
When Sean Harrington entered his freshman year at Arlington High School, he noticed something peculiar: There were no American flags in the classrooms, and no one recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
So Harrington enlisted the aid of his fellow students, and now, three years later, they have succeeded in getting flags installed in the classrooms. But the pledge still will not be recited.
The Arlington, Mass., school committee has rejected the 17-year-old’s request to allow students to voluntarily recite the Pledge of Allegiance, because some educators are concerned that it would be hard to find teachers willing to recite it, according to a report in the Arlington Patch.
Harrington had presented school officials with a petition signed by 700 people, along with letters of support from lawmakers including Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.
But the request to have the pledge recited failed when the committee’s vote ended in a 3-3 tie.
I was really heartbroken,” Harrington told FOX News Radio. “It’s hard to think that something so traditional in American society was turned down.”
His fight has received quite a bit of support from the community. “When I was going to school, it was an honor and a privilege to pledge allegiance to the flag,” Francis De Guglielmo, 55, told the Patch. He called the ban an “absolute travesty” and a “disgrace.”
Harrington, who will be a senior in the fall, said he will continue to fight. “I’m not a person who quits and I don’t back down. It’s a very righteous cause and needs to be followed through until the end.”
Some committee members voiced concerns about forcing people to do something that might violate their beliefs – including religious beliefs. Among the no-votes was committee member Leba Heigham.
“Patriotism is a very personal thing for all of us, but I do not think it is in the school committee’s best interest to mandate that any of our employees recite the pledge,” she told the Patch.
Harrington said the recitation would have been strictly voluntary.
“If we can’t find one teacher who is willing to say the pledge, then the system we have is cracked,” he told FOX News Radio, noting that a number of teachers signed his petition.
He said the school’s ban on the pledge sends the wrong message.
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End notes:
1. “Some committee members voiced concerns about forcing people to do something that might violate their beliefs – including religious beliefs.”
Are these “committee” members part of the cc-ds? The COMMITTEE of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism?
The teacher unions have the support of the Communist Party USA. The Communists and Socialists only use GOD to push their “social agenda.” example: Jim Wallis
2. WHAT part of the pledge offends them?
“of the United States of America”……? Would they rather it be to the United Socialist States of America?
“And to the REPUBLIC for which it stands?” Oh yeah, the Communists/Socialists call the USA a “Democracy” not a “Republic”…….
“One Nation under GOD?” Now we cater to ATHEISTS? MOST religions worship a GOD.
3. If the pledge offends them, have them go out to the HALL; TEACHER included during the Pledge of Allegiance.
4. If they don’t LOVE AMERICA…..there is nothing stopping them from leaving. I hear China, Russia and even North Korea can use some more workers, including teachers.
The pledge would be voluntary.
SINCE WHEN CAN A SCHOOL STOP FREE SPEECH (The Pledge of Allegiance)?
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**UPDATE**
Massachusetts School Offers to Allow Pledge of Allegiance — but Not in Class
Student Sean Harrington appears to have won his fight to bring the Pledge of Allegiance back into his Massachusetts high school — except the principal’s proposed solution leaves the daily honor to the nation’s flag literally hanging in the hall.
Charles Skidmore, principal of Arlington High School in Arlington, Mass., has offered to allow students to recite the pledge before school begins — but in the school’s foyer and not in the classrooms, as 17-year-old Harrington had hoped.
Kathleen Bodie, Arlington superintendent of schools, told Fox News Radio that “The principal wanted to be very respectful about the pledge and be sensitive to the Supreme Court ruling that students are not forced to say the pledge. He wanted to be sensitive to the diverse group of students we have.”
Bodie said there has been reluctance to put the district’s teachers in a position of reciting the pledge, and she acknowledged that some have raised concerns about its inclusion of the words “under God.”
[...]
He said the school’s ban on the pledge sent the wrong message. “It tells me that we’ve basically cast aside what our country is founded on,” he said. “It’s saying that we don’t really care, and it’s sad.”
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As an ASIDE but still from Massachusetts:
The superintendent of a Provincetown, Mass., school district is apologizing to parents for what she calls a misunderstanding over a condom availability policy.
In an e-mailed letter sent out on Tuesday, Superintendent Beth Singer said that the district will clarify that elementary school-age students won’t be able to get a condom if they request one from the school nurse.
The condom distribution policy — approved by the Provincetown school board unanimously on June 8 – allows all district students to get access to free condoms without parental notification and does not specify a minimum age or grade level for who can be given condoms.
The open-ended language and lack of parental control resulted in the attention of conservative organizations and national media. Massachusetts Family Institute said the move would give children as young as 6 access to condoms. “Making condoms available to first-graders bullies parents to submit to an agenda that promotes sexual promiscuity to innocent children at their most vulnerable age,” the group stated in a press release.
Massachusetts’ Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, who is running for re-election against two conservative candidates in November, called to complain about the lack of an age limit and the school’s decision not to tell parents about any requests students may make, even though, he admitted, it was a local issue.
**Deval Patrick IS the Governor isn’t he? Only complaining because it makes a PROGRESSIVE Governor look bad………Sad!***
Massachusetts VOTERS: ARE YOU GETTING THIS?
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NOT RACIST.
NOT VIOLENT.
JUST NO LONGER SILENT.
