BOARD TO CONSIDER SCHOOLS PLAYING ‘STAR SPANGLED BANNER’ ONCE A WEEK
At Monday (March 4) night’s Anchorage School Board meeting, the board will take up the question of whether the National Anthem and the Alaska Flag Song should be played once a week in all schools. As in, played over the broadcast system in the schools.
Currently only four Anchorage schools do so — and they happen to be the top-ranked schools.
[Watch 7-year-old Maia Emma sing the Star Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key before a Seattle Sounders-Galaxy match last September:
The existing Anchorage School District policy is to promote and teach patriotism, such as reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and “other patriotic activities” as identified by the board. But the board has never quite identified what those other patriotic activities are.
Board member Dave Donley says it’s time for the district to stop taking a knee for the National Anthem.
The board has held three governance committee meetings that dealt with Donley’s proposal. A survey of all the schools found that some were not even reciting the Pledge, as required, and the majority never played the National Anthem. Therefore, children are not learning it, nor are they learning the Alaska Flag Song.
The question will appear at the meeting as Memorandum 120, and public testimony will be heard, likely around 7:30 pm (meeting starts at 7 pm). The board meets in the Anchorage Education Center, 5530 East Northern Lights Blvd.
Note: There has been strong opposition from some other board members. The item is on the agenda shortly after the recognition of “Music in the Schools Month.”
