QUESTION How would you promote patriotism in schools?

Dave Donley answers real questions with real answers 

1. Play the National Anthem and Alaska Flag Song in schools. I have twice sponsored a new policy to ensure the National Anthem and the Alaska Flag Song are played at least once a month in schools. There was no requirement to sing – just to play the songs at least once a month. My first resolution failed on a 3 – 4 vote. One Board member opposing it at the time, who is no longer on the Board, compared it to Nazi Germany. My second resolution is stuck in committee. My motion to discharge this resolution from committee in November 2022 failed without a second.

2. Insure all schools say the Pledge of Allegiance each morning. Alaska state law AS 14.03.130 requires the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance “regularly” in schools but leaves it to school boards to determine what “regularly” means. ASD policy BP 6115 requires the Pledge to be said “regularly.” ASD administrative regulation AR 6115(a) requires the Pledge to said each morning over the public address system. Some ASD schools have refused to do so. I have called on the ASD Administration to enforce its own regulation. Some on the School Board have opposed that.

3. Adopt a policy ensuring a more robust compliance with federal law regarding Constitution Day. U.S. law Section 111(b) of Division J of Pub. L. 108-447, the “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005,” Dec. 8, 2004; 118 Stat. 2809, 3344-45 requires all public schools to provide educational activities regarding the U.S. Constitution on September 17th . This day commemorates the September 17, 1787, signing of the United States Constitution. Currently how ASD schools comply with this law is left to the discretion of individual schools. Some schools take this law to heart and do meaningful educational activities about the Constitution; some schools do not do much.

4. Adopt a policy ensuring schools acknowledge Pearl Harbor Day and 9/11. The acknowledgement over the public address system and playing of a traditional patriotic song (i.e. America the Beautiful and My County Tis Of Thee) the morning of Pearl Harbor Day and 9/11 would help educate students of the significance to our great nation of these tragic days.

5. Adopt a policy ensuring the reading of at least the first two sentences of the Declaration of Independence once a year in every school. “WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation. We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”