by Dr. Larry Moses
No one asked me but…The issue of whether or not a student can be required to stand for the pledge each morning at school has once again hit the Las Vegas news. This seems to be a story that pops up in one form or another every so often. It may be the issue of a prayer being given, a reference to God in a valedictorian address, or the pledge; but it is really the same issue. It is a school district finding itself in a conflict that has been settled by the Supreme Court a long time ago. Albeit, many of us disagree with the Court’s decision, it has been made nonetheless.
As the story is told, this time, a young man, new to the school because he had been removed from his past school for putting graffiti on the bathroom walls, refused to stand for the pledge. The teacher who thought she was following a district policy asked the student stand during the pledge. When he refused to stand because he did not believe America was “one nation under God,” he was asked to leave the class and to report to the dean’s office. An interesting side note was the young man had been in the class for two weeks and apparently stood during the pledge. But maybe he had an epiphany overnight or maybe for the first time the day before he actually listened to the pledge and said to himself, “Dude, I did not know that God thing was in there, I am not standing tomorrow.”
The issue of whether a student must participate in the pledge was settled well over sixty years ago. In 1943, the Supreme Court ruled that public school children were protected by the First Amendment and could not be forced to participate in reciting the pledge. In the 1970’s, the 2nd United States Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on the issue of forcing the student to stand during the pledge by stating: “It can no more be required than the pledge itself.”
On the issue of whether or not the student should have been sent to the Dean’s office for failure to stand during the pledge, putting emotions aside, one must turn to Clark County School District Regulation 6113.3 which in part states: “Students who have conscientious objections, which interfere with full participation in the salute to the flag or Pledge of Allegiance, shall maintain a respectful attitude throughout the ceremony.” Nowhere in this regulation does it require the student to participate or stand during the pledge. However, the district teacher training officials did admit that the teacher, during her orientation to Clark County School district, was told “a respectful attitude” included standing during the pledge. Therefore, the teacher thought she was acting within the regulations of the CCSD. It is refreshing that the district did not leave the teacher “swinging in the wind” and took responsibility for the instructions given during teacher orientation. You still have to wonder how such an issue can continue to crop up when the CCSD has a large staff of full time attorneys.
On a philosophical level, the question arises; if you have to demand allegiance does it really exist? The greatest thing about America is not that it requires everyone to express a love for the country, but that those who do are willing to share the benefits of this great country with those who do not.
Let me state now, so the letters won’t flood the desk of the editor, that not everyone who refuses to salute the flag or say the pledge is an American hater. Some have legitimate religious beliefs that do not allow them to place anything, including a country, in what they consider a position higher than their God.
I remember having a discussion with a highly decorated Marine Sgt. Major about the loyalty of a person. He stated his loyalties ranked as follows: God, The United States Marine Corps, the United States of America, and his family. Though I disagreed with his placement of the Corps before the country, I did not argue with him because he was a Sgt. Major and he knew five ways to kill me with just his thumb. He had the Purple Hearts and Silver Stars to prove his love of country.
If the young man in the story above was pure in motive, more power to him. As for me and my family, we will stand and pledge allegiance and defend his right not to do so.
No one asked me but… Green Valley High School in Las Vegas has instituted a mandatory drug-testing program for its athletes. Since January 28, the school has randomly tested forty students. Those tests cost $1,060 and all tests came back negative. The test will detect alcohol, tobacco, cocaine, steroids, and amphetamines. The tests are being paid for by a $10,000 grant and an additional fee of $10 on the purchase of the athletic packet for any student who wishes to participate in an athletic program at the school.
If the student is a three-sport athlete, a rarity in big schools, the cost at Green Valley would be over $100 per year. While this is not prohibitive at a school like Green Valley, it could be at less affluent schools. However, this is probably a mute point for the really talented, as the coaches will find a way to take care of them…. The marginal athletes however, will be left to fend for themselves.
In a district that has been asked to cut $94 million from its current budget it becomes difficult to understand why they would allow another costly non-educational program to be instituted. This program, if allowed to go on, will one day become the financial responsibility of the district. Over the last 50-years of education, the standard practice has been the addition of programs on a small scale often financed by outside sources. These programs then grow and spread and as independent financers lose interest, the schools have to pick up the costs the programs. In this manner, more and more non-education issues have been dropped on the footsteps of the schoolhouse door.
The cost of the program to go district-wide is astronomical. There were over 20,000 students involved in the various athletic programs in the CCSD for the year 2006-2007. This plan calls for the testing of all athletes at the beginning of each season and then random testing each month thereafter. The initial testing of all student athletes would cost the district $600,000. This figure is a little low because it does not take into account those students who would have to test to try out but are cut from the teams. In the first 10-days of this program, Green Valley High School has randomly tested 40 students, projected over a month that would be 120 students a month and at that rate, a district-wide program would cost another $1.4 million a year. Interestingly enough, all of the tests completed at Green Valley High School have returned with negative results.
Dr. Ed Goldman of the Clark County School District stated that of all of the reported drug incidents in the CCSD, athletes were involved in 3.4 percent of the incidents. My rapid mathematical mind tells me that 96.6 percent of the students involved in drug incidents in the CCSD are not athletes.
In Green Valley, where the administration feels drugs among their athletes is running rampant, less that 8 percent of the campus drug incidents involved an athlete. They may serve the school better testing groups responsible for the other 92 percent of the drug incidents.
Where is the parental responsibility? If a parent wants to know if his child is actively using drugs, they can take him to the doctor at anytime and have a drug screen taken. But once again, parents are asking the school to take their responsibilities. If I were old and cynical, I might say something like this younger generation of parents only want to deal with child rearing during the conception.
I know my father had it figured out. If he wanted to know if I was smoking, he would ask. I would say no, and he would give me a shot upside the head because he knew I was not only smoking but I was lying to him. How did I know there were twenty cigarettes to a pack and my father could count?
If the district finds the program expensive, wait until the first false positive takes place. What will the cost be when the senior athlete with the prospect of a college scholarship is found positive and suspended from the team for six weeks as required by the NIAA? What will it cost when the scholarship is lost and the parent sues the district for the equivalent of the college education and the hardship the drug stigma the false positive has caused?
One must wonder if the district really wants to get into the law enforcement business as versus their role in education. Oh, but wait! The district is already in the law enforcement business. The district spends over $10,000,000 of its educational budget each year on a school police department which may be the fifth largest in the state of Nevada. But that is an issue for another column.
I guess a random drug-testing program could be justified as part of the vocational education program. Many of the jobs these youngsters will be filing for when they graduate will require a drug test.
Thought for the week…We love some things because they are valuable and some things are valuable because we love them.
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