Young Voices Across the U.S. Pledge Allegiance

The younger ones might not have fully comprehended what they were saying, but schoolchildren from Kodiak, Alaska, to Pensacola, Fla.--at virtually the same moment--bonded in spirit Friday to pledge allegiance.

Facing flags in festooned schoolyards, above classroom blackboards and on shiny auditorium stages, they placed their right hands over their hearts at 11 a.m. PDT and recited the oath in unison, in voices sometimes sweet, sometimes loud and sometimes unheard.

In Northridge, 85 students gathered outside CHIME Charter Elementary School and made their pledge in American Sign Language. The silence was broken only by the sound of the flag flapping in the wind.

Their favorite part: raising the right arm, bent at the elbow, and waving the hand while touching the bent elbow with the left index finger. “The flag.”

It was not known how many of the nation’s 52 million schoolchildren participated in the exercise in patriotic solidarity, with many school districts deferring to the discretion of their principals.

The idea for the “Nationwide Pledge Across America” was spawned by Paula Burton, 61, of Villa Park, Calif., who 10 years ago began her campaign for a nationally coordinated, school-based pledge of allegiance as a vow of unity.

The White House got wind of it and Education Secretary Rod Paige’s office wrote the principals of the nation’s 107,000 public and private elementary and secondary schools, saying the event could “send a loud and powerful message that will be heard around the world: America is ‘one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.’ ”

On Friday, Burton stood outside Serrano Elementary School in Villa Park, where 800 students voiced their support on a playground decorated with red, white and blue streamers.

“We really need this,” said James Munoz, 12. “We really haven’t shown much patriotism before all this. We just kind of took everything for granted.”

The significance of the pledge seemed lost on younger children, but not the grim context of Friday’s efforts.

“It means we’re all together, and we’re not going to let any terrorists make our people sad,” said 10-year-old Brandon Jones, who joined his 880 schoolmates at Ollie Detwiler Elementary School in Las Vegas.

And why was the pledge so special Friday?

“Because we went to war,” said Amber Borges, 7. “Buildings fell down. The bad people were mean.” And, with a big smile erupting across her face, she added, “We say it because we don’t call each other names and because we love our country!”

Older children--like Carole Solomon’s sixth-graders at Westland Middle School in Bethesda, Md.--grasped the day’s message.

The class is exchanging letters with South Bronx students in New York City, where Solomon’s daughter teaches--students who lost relatives and friends in the World Trade Center attacks.

Patrick McMahon, 11, said the effort to coordinate the pledges “really shows there’s a lot of patriotism and that we’re supporting America and rallying behind the president.”

Perhaps nowhere was the patriotic drill more dramatic than at Palms Middle School in Los Angeles, where teacher Elaine Cohen had been coaching her 21 students struggling with English in preparation of reciting the pledge.

Her class is a quintessential melting pot of America, with students from South Korea, Brazil, India, China, Nicaragua, Bangladesh, Mexico, Japan, El Salvador, Pakistan, Egypt and the Philippines.

The students are Protestant, Roman Catholic, Muslim and Hindu; Cohen is Jewish.

“How many people,” she asked, her brood, “are happy to be in this country?” All 21 children raised their hands.

“I feel very good and comfortable in this country,” said Deepti Shikha, 11. “I think it’s good to say the pledge of allegiance. I’m really happy.”

In Las Vegas, second-grader Amber rehearsed the pledge before the assembly was led by Mayor Oscar Goodman.

She concluded with the words she hears every day over the school’s public address system: “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You may sit down now.”

Gorman reported from Las Vegas. Times staff writers Tina Borgatta in Villa Park, Carol Chambers in Northridge, Marlene Cimons in Washington and Erika Hayasaki in Los Angeles contributed to this report.