STORM2K

School's Can't Afford Flags, So Students Watch TV

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Students at Central High School have been watching TV during the Pledge of Allegiance, but no one's complaining.

Unable to buy enough real flags for the new school year, Central High has taken to showing an image of the American flag on classroom TVs while students make the pledge.

A new state law requires school children to say the pledge at least once a week, and the school simply doesn't have enough flags for that.

The problem originated five years ago when the high school was repainted and many flag holders were taken down, Principal Mary Mackbee said.

"It's very expensive to outfit a school like this with flags and flag holders," she said.

Other schools throughout the St. Paul and Minneapolis districts, already burdened with budget cuts, are struggling to provide enough flags.

Many schools haven't said the pledge regularly for years. The St. Paul district's most recent estimate showed 1,300 classrooms without flags, another 970 without flag holders.

Well, a TV is one way of looking at flags while reciting the pledges.

I don't agree with some of the things in that article. A state law requires it? Sure, I'd love to say the pledge every day, cause i'm an American. Some people, who have nothing aginst America, just don't say the pledge for certain reasons. What happens to them? My middle school started saying the pledge a week after 9/11/01, which is wrong imo. It should of started along time ago. We don't say the pledge in HS. And, I know most every kind of budget is in some sort of defecit, but you cannot afford $2.50 for each flag? :?

They can afford tv's in the classrooms but not flags?

That does not compute, Will Robinson.

I'll sign a recall petition for that school board.

Y'know, if they asked Wal-Mart VERY nicely, I'd wager that the entire Minnesota school system would be supplied with 3'x5', nylon flags and poles/brackets at little or no charge.