This won’t surprise anyone from Mass, Brookline is one of the richest towns in the state, super-elitist and in Bawney Fwank’s district…
A Brookline public school is bringing back the Pledge of Allegiance next month — and the principal is asking parents to fill out permission slips before their children participate.
“It’s uncomfortable. The pledge is a promise, and I’ve always taught my kids to think very carefully before making any promise. It’s not a decision I want to make for them,” said Judi Puritz Cook, who has two sons at the Devotion School.
On Monday, Devotion Principal Gerardo J. Martinez sent a letter to parents telling them that the school would begin weekly recitations next month of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag that he’d lead over the public address system.
He said teachers and students can’t be mandated to participate in the pledge under the Constitution, and called it a personal choice to participate.
“I urge you to have a conversation as a family to help your children understand why I will be reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and to support them in feeling comfortable and confident in the decision on whether or not to participate,” Martinez said in the letter.
But Sarah Wunsch, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union in Boston, said she hasn’t heard of another school using permission slips to handle the pledge.
“It suggests that this is a decision for parents alone. Are they going to enforce that?” asked Wunsch, calling the use of permission slips “really strange.”
She said that the permission slip raises the issue of what would the schools do if a student’s wishes differ from his or her parents.
“I think that’s really strange that they’d do that… even children don’t lose their right of expression simply by walking into a schoolhouse’s doors,” said Wunsch, herself a Brookline resident.