BVNW students will begin reciting the Pledge of Allegiance beginning Friday.
Kansas Statute 72-5308 requires public schools to provide a program for “patriotic exercises.” The statute lists the regular recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance as a patriotic exercise.
Principal Dr. David Sharp said BVNW students and staff will begin reciting the Pledge of Allegiance daily.
“We will do it right at the start of first or second hour,” Sharp said.
After meeting with the Blue Valley department chairs Monday, Sharp said there will not be any formal communication to parents or to the school about this change before Friday. The department chairs communicated the change to their departments.
“It’s more organic from the building,” Sharp said.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1943’s West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette that students cannot be compelled to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Students who choose to not participate will not be punished nor forced to recite it.
“There are no repercussions or anything. They don’t have to participate,” Sharp said. “You can’t say anything to them. You can’t ask them to stand. You can’t force anybody to stand or make commentary to anything. That’s just a choice that they have.”
Senior Guna Thatipelli shared how he views the statute as a potential hindrance to the schedule of the school day.
“It’s not a problem about the Pledge of Allegiance specifically. It’s more that every day, in a lot of my classes, we start at the bell and we go almost to the end,” Thatipelli said. “If it’s going to be playing over the intercom, it’s just going to be honestly wasteful.”
Sharp said reciting the Pledge will take between 20-25 seconds.
Additionally, Thatipelli said he worried practicing the act daily would give the idea that students cannot express their own feelings about America without judgment.
“I think that Kansas, making it commonplace, does sound like an interesting message because it seems that like it can give a message to kids that we can’t be critical of our own country, which I think is very bad,” Thatipelli said.
