Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Patriotism and Two Interesting Sections of California Education Code

While reading ed code to find some information for another post, I came across Section 38117:

The governing board of each school district throughout the state shall provide for each schoolhouse under its control, a suitable Flag of the United States, which shall be hoisted above each schoolhouse during all school sessions and on school holidays,weather permitting.

The governing board of each school district shall provide smaller and suitable United States Flags to be displayed in each schoolroom at all times during the school sessions.

The governing board of each school district shall enforce this section.

Additionally, Section 52720 states the following:

In every public elementary school each day during the school year at the beginning of the first regularly scheduled class or activity period at which the majority of the pupils of the school normally begin the schoolday, there shall be conducted appropriate patriotic exercises. The giving of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America shall satisfy the requirements of this section.

In every public secondary school there shall be conducted daily appropriate patriotic exercises. The giving of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America shall satisfy such requirement. Such patriotic exercises for secondary schools shall be conducted in accordance with the regulations which shall be adopted by the governing board of the district maintaining the secondary school.

From these I glean two interesting points. The first point is that our legislature does not intend for our schools to be patriotism-free zones, and the second is that raising the flag each morning does not, in and of itself, satisfy the "patriotic exercise" requirement of Section 52720.

Also of interest is the fact that I have provided my own national and state flags in my classroom (actually, my current ones were given to me as a gift by a former student) because my classroom had none when I moved in over 5 years ago.

This post ties in nicely with this post from a couple weeks ago, about the pledge of allegiance.

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