Student's grades lowered for sitting during Pledge of Allegiance!

[yuiyoshida]

Leilani Thomas has been sitting out the Pledge of Allegiance since way before she knew who Colin Kaepernick was. The Native American high school student has been protesting silently since she was in second grade.

“My mom and my dad brought up what it meant to us and our people,” Leilani said. “So I just started sitting down.”

But for the first time a teacher at Lower Lake High School took issue with it and docked her participation grade for not standing.

“She told me I was being disrespectful and I was pretty mad,” Leilani said. “She was being disrespectful to me also, saying I was making bad choices, and I don’t have the choice to sit during the pledge.”

Konocti School District Superintendent Donna Becnel is standing by Leilani and the other student who chose to sit. When asked why, Becnel said because of the first amendment.

http://www.abc10.com/news/local/california/students-grades-lowered-for-sitting-during-pledge-of-allegiance/319009465?cid=abcn_tco

[MADem]

1. Hmm.

The school superintendent is correct, and I hope she has adjusted the kid's grades as well as moved her to another class. More importantly, I hope that teacher got a talking-to.

The superintendent said its district policy to respect the students’ free speech. The school switched Leilani and her friend to another teacher after learning about the incident.

It's perfectly acceptable for the teacher to say "If you aren't going to participate, you can go sit outside the classroom (or at the back of the classroom) during this activity" but it's not OK to lower the grade.

They wouldn't lower grades for a foreign student, after all, whose allegiance is to a different flag.

And reciting a little poem has nothing to do with academics, anyway.

[yeoman6987]

2. Participation grade. Good grief. Not even on the report card except kindergarden

[MADem]

4. It can't--or should not -- be applied to activities that are optional.

That's where the teacher's 'logic' failed!

I think someone deserves to be marked down in that classroom--and it's the one with the biggest desk!

[LanternWaste]

5. Not your most clever attempt to date at minimizing or trivializing a valid concern.

Not your most clever attempt to date at minimizing or trivializing a valid concern.

Good grief, indeed.

[Takket]

3. Maybe the teacher would be happier in a place where patriotism is forced upon the citizens?

I'm sure North Korea would welcome her!