A California school district is looking into a teacher who joked about telling a student he could pledge allegiance to the Pride Flag in a now-viral video.
In the video, Kristin Pitzen, an English as a Second Language teacher in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, explains how she permits kids to take the pledge of allegiance in her class.
“Okay, so in the third period, we make announcements, and they swear allegiance,” Pitzen said in the video shared on his deleted TikTok account @ mrsgillingsworth. “I always say to my class, ‘Get up if you want to, don’t stand if you want to, say the words if you want. You don’t have to say the words.’ So my class decided to stand up but not to speak the words. Very well. Other than the fact that my room does not have a flag.”
Pitzen pointed to the area where the American flag in her classroom was supposed to be but said that she had taken it down during the Covid-19 pandemic “because it made me uncomfortable,” she added quietly. She stated that she had packed it and had not yet located it.
“But today, my kid said, ‘Hey, it’s very weird that we’re standing about and not saying anything,’” Pitzen recalled.
“In the meantime, I say to this kid, ‘We have a flag in the classroom to which you can pledge your allegiance.’ And he likes to look around and say, “Oh, that one?” She laughed as she pointed to the rainbow pride flag.
Some people stated their problem wasn’t so much with the appearance of a pride flag in the classroom as it was with Pitzen’s words about the American flag, which they deemed offensive considering the news last week. 13 US personnel were murdered in an attack on Kabul Airport in Afghanistan by terrorists.
“What kind of parent would allow their child to be educated by this wacky?” wrote Richard Grenell, a former acting director of national intelligence, on Twitter.
The Newport-Mesa Unified School District said it was looking into the video in a statement on Twitter.
A district spokesman declined to comment on the specifics of the investigation or whether or not the district had a policy regulating flags in classrooms.
“Although we do not discuss employee issues, we can tell you that showing respect and honor for our country’s flag is a value that we instill in our students and an expectation of our employees,” said declared the spokesperson. “We take these kinds of things seriously and are taking action to address them.”
Pitzen had previously written pieces for TikTok about Pride and the LGBTQ community. In June, she showed off new pride flags she bought for pride month in a video, saying, “I swear allegiance to gays.”
Many critics of Pitzen have questioned whether she should have taken the American flag from her classroom, while others have claimed that she should not force her own ideas about LGBTQ people on children.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28ik-zx7C7Y
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