Boy's Parents Want Teacher Fired for Sitting Son in Hall-Wont Pledge Allegiance to Flag

Lakewood Press Democrat ^ | January 8, 2003 | Ucilia Wang

[ewing]

The parents of a Lakewood Middle School student Thursday will ask the School Board to fire the teacher who told the student to leave the classroom for refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Victoria Kearney said she will ask Lakeport Unified School District board to dismiss David Laven becase she is dissatisfied with the district's handling of the complaint about Lavin's treatment of her son, Jim Woodbury.

Laven told Woodbury to stand outside the classroom when he wouldn't say the Pledge of Allegiance in his U.S. History and Constitution class last semester.

[Dimensio]

the kid might've been reciting an *ahem* "alternative version"

I plead alignment
To the flakes
Of the untitled snakes of a merry cow.
And to the repbulicans for which they scam
One nacho, underpants, with licorice and jugs of wine for owls.



It's a free country!

[Dimensio]

If that's true, then this is no different than a teacher doing this to a boy scout or someone with religious material.

The difference is that the kid was trying to push an arguably 'liberal' viewpoint rather than a conservative one. Some FReepers think that the law doesn't apply to the former, only the latter.

[Dimensio]

Until the facts are fully known, some FReepers will need to fabricate events so that the teacher is in the right even if he ignored the law.

[Dimensio]

the kid was trying to get those in the class who were reciting to stop.. during The Pledge.

And that must be true because the teacher wouldn't lie to try to cover his own ass after discovering that what he did was illegal.

I'll withold judgement until I hear more information.

[FreeTally]

I think I responded to that allegation by saying the teacher would have sent the student to the principal or dean if that was the case, i.e. being disruptive and causing problems.

[Freedom4US]

Okay, I'll be the goat . . . The Supreme court has already ruled that kids can't be forced to say the pledge in school.

And he wasn't forced to say the pledge, so I'm unclear what your reasoning is. The problem is this kids parents are guilty of child abuse by raising a child with no values other than his own - his parents are most assuredly functionally neurotic morons and undeserving of anything other than humiliation.

[Teacher317]

And that must be true because the teacher wouldn't lie to try to cover his own ass after discovering that what he did was illegal.
I'll withold judgement until I hear more information.

Probably smart, but I think it's far more likely for a kid to misbehave during a boring, routine class exercise than it is for a teacher to willfully violate a student's rights and not cave in and apologise when the parents/administrators/newsies/lawyers are called in.