SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Pledge of Allegiance Ordered in Schools

Students in the Capistrano Unified School District will soon be required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance each morning before school starts.

While many local schools already start the day with a pledge to the flag, a 1976 district policy required only that teachers work to “impress upon the minds of the pupils the principles of morality, truth, justice, patriotism and a true comprehension of the rights, duties and dignity of American citizenship. . . .”

State law also stops short of requiring the pledge, instead requiring that schools start the day with “appropriate patriotic observances,” which could include the Pledge of Allegiance, officials said.

In a unanimous vote Monday, the Board of Trustees changed the district policy to require, at the least, that students recite the Pledge of Allegiance each morning. Other patriotic observances, such as songs, quotations and flag-raising ceremonies, are encouraged but left to the discretion of individual schools.

“I do feel it’s important to our students to pledge to the flag each morning,” Trustee Crystal Kochendorfer said.

The change in policy also meets a goal outlined in the district’s recently adopted long-range strategic plan, Capistrano 2000, that seeks to “educate students and to assist them in realizing their full potential as responsible, productive, contributing members of society.”

During a hearing on the issue, one teacher said he believed the district would better meet its goal by allowing teachers more flexibility in morning patriotic observances.

“By reciting something daily, it begins to lose meaning,” said Randal Seech, a fifth-grade teacher in the district.

But trustees said teachers will still have flexibility to hold other activities to inspire patriotism above and beyond the Pledge of Allegiance.