Taking a knee in elementary school....

In my k-12 district, we are not to require students to stand for the Pledge. If they stay seated we say nothing. So, taking a knee is not something we are allowed to question. Frankly, if a student took a knee over sitting, usually because they don’t want to get up and nothing to do with personal conscience, I’d be pleased.

It is state law in Michigan that they recite the pledge every morning. My DD chooses not to participate. She objects to the words under God. She's been doing this for at least all of highschool and no one has ever made a big deal of it.

I say as long as the kids were quiet and didn't make a scene it's no big deal.

I was in high school when "under God" was added. I just didn't say that part and still don't.

An elementary school should follow the rulings of the Suprene Court;students cannot be forced to stand for the pledge or the anthem. Schools should not make a scene and let kids choose to quietly sit or kneel.

  My elementary school didn't do the pledge. Then I went to a gifted school that did. I objected to the whole thing, cause I'm a rebel like that. It still chafes me, the thought of forced allegiance to a country. Way too lock-step Nazi for me. I still feel that way, even after 22 years as a military wife.

  This would have been 1983, so this is nothing new. And please don't discount a second grader understanding what they are kneeling for. I can assure you I would have known, and have no doubt my DD would have to at that age.

amp.cnn.com/cnn/2013/09/04/us/pledge-of-allegiance-fast-facts/index.html

1943 - In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the Supreme Court rules that requiring a person to say the pledge is violating the first and fourteenth amendments. Jehovah's Witnesses challenged the the West Virginia Board of Education's requirement that students salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance or be expelled. The Jehovah's Witnesses argued that this was against their religious beliefs.



October 5, 2012 - Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signs legislation requiring public school students be provided the opportunity to recite the Pledge of Allegiance each school day. However, students can't be forced to say the pledge.

7yos have more ability to have a sense of justice than you may be giving them credit for.

Even if children express their opinions imperfectly, expressing their thoughts is part of becoming involved and productive citizens.

This. The law is clear. Her students are well within their rights.

Leave them alone and move on.
You cannot force a child to stand, nor should you

It is completely legal to not participate in the pledge of allegiance, as long as students are not being willfully disruptive. Silently sitting or kneeling is well within their rights. And it's good that they learn that. I never did.

" "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.

"We think the actions

of the local authorities in compelling the flag salute and pledge transcends constitutional limitations on their power and invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control."

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)"

Coerced pledges and coerced prayers and coerced oaths aren't worth the air they're transmitted through.

Thankfully our school/state doesn't make reciting the pledge a thing. Why are schools even doing it in the first place?

As a Christian, I think it's time to take it back out. What was the reasoning at the time for adding it?

I have been sitting out the pledge since second grade, because I had a classmate who was a Jehovah's Witness and sat it out for religious reasons, and I didn't want them to feel alone. No one ever made an issue of it, and that was in the 70s and 80s.

History: September 18, 1892 - The pledge is published for the first time in the juvenile magazine "The Youth's Companion." The pledge is written to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America.

1924 - The words "the flag of the United States of America" put in place of "my Flag." The pledge was originally written - "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

1942 - The pledge is recognized by the US government.

1954 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower asks Congress to add "under God" to the pledge. Congress adds the phrase.