I don’t understand this weird American obsession with flag. I was looking at some photos of Trump’s rallies. Flags everywhere - on shirts, hats, glasses etc. And this bizarre cult of the flag - “it cannot touch the ground” etc.
At the end of the day the flag is just a piece of cloth. If you worship any flag or take offense to any flag, you need to get a life.
They don’t have to. It would be unconstitutional if they did. What happens sometimes unfortunately, for teachers to sort of discourage not taking part, or potentially punish the student for an “unrelated” reason. The school I went to only did the pledge once a year though.
I was suspended from school multiple times for refusing to pledge allegiance when I was in high school in the states.
Then you would have had legal recourse to sue and no one told you your rights.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/west-virginia-v.-barnette-the-freedom-to-not-pledge-allegiance
No one tells children their rights and this country basically operates on the idea that they don’t have rights other than don’t be raped or made to work.
That said, kids get punished for not doing the pledge every day by power tripping teachers, they have for decades and will for decades more
It was a class rule that we had to recite the pledge. I was suspended for not following the rules of the class, not for not reciting the pledge. But this was the early 90s and I was more worried about not being beat by my mother than I was about my rights.
Except a law that forces you to do something you have a constitutional right not to do isn’t valid and wouldn’t stand up in court, so still wrongly suspended and you would have had a case either way. But, not much to be done about it now, so probably a moot point anyway.
You do though because the teacher will punish kids who don’t do it. Is there an official law or rule? No, but that doesn’t stop power tripping teachers and admin from punishing kids that don’t toe the absolute obedience line