The Wake County School Board has backtracked on a proposed policy change regarding the Pledge of Allegiance.

Quick recap from March, the controversy was over the following text in the policy:

The citizenship curriculum also may include appropriate instruction on the rights and responsibilities of citizenship and guidelines for the use and display of the North Carolina and United States flags. The curriculum must ensure that no student will be compelled to salute the flag, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, stand to acknowledge the flag or stand to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance, or otherwise feel coerced to participate. In addition, the citizenship curriculum may encourage teachers to use the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance as an opportunity to teach students about the history concerning coercion and the importance of the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights. 

For fun, go read this comment  by “Edward Bellamy” on the News and Observer’s original article in March. Then read the history of The Pledge.

I replied to Mr. Bellamy’s comment, but it appears the News and Observer removed it. All I did was point out some history. Like how Mr. Bellamy ironically shares the name of the creator of the first Pledge of Allegiance and that the use and intent of The Pledge today versus that in 1892 as penned by a Socialist minister is as different as the versions themselves.

Officials are now saying they never had an intention of changing the policy and it was just a product of merging a policy from one place to another, according to a quote captured by The News and Observer:

“There was never any intent to change anything,” Tim Simmons, a Wake schools spokesman, said Monday. “In order to make that as clear as possible, the policy committee asked for staff to bring it back.”

Staff had previously recommended merging the district’s character education and Pledge of Allegiance policies into a new citizenship and character education policy, part of an ongoing effort to match the N.C. School Boards Association’s policy manual. No mention about the coercion wording was discussed at the March committee meeting.

“They looked at it simply as moving a policy from the school system’s numbering system to the School Boards’ policy numbering system.” Simmons said.

Mmmkay.