GUILDERLAND — After the school board members stood, as usual, at the start of their May 6 meeting to pledge their allegiance to the flag and to the republic for which it stands, they heard from three speakers on matters of democracy and advocacy.

One Guilderland resident proposed an award for a student essay on democracy. Another resident questioned the school’s policy on daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. And a middle-school French teacher spoke about teaching liberty and justice in her classroom.

Keith Kizer told the board, “We face a sharply divided country to which I offer this quote from Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.: “The genius of America lies in its capacity to forge a single nation from people of remarkably diverse racial, religious, and ethnic origins.”

Kizer said that, in hoping to form a more perfect union, he and his wife, Debbie Flaherty, were proposing The Lieutenant James Carton Flaherty Memorial Award.

Flaherty, who graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1953 and then had multiple overseas deployments “perished in a B-29 training mission on April 7, 1958,” said Kizer. “He left behind his wife, Barbara, and his 9-month-old daughter, Debbie.”

The initial award of $500, which the board approved later in the meeting, is to be given “to a student to promote critical evaluation of our democratic system of government by answering the question ‘Why should the United States of America remain a democracy?’ in an essay of 500 to 1,000 words.”

The essay is to include at least three references to publicly available literature including at least one of: “Brave New World,” “1984,” or “Animal Farm”; at least one of: the Constitution of the United States of America, the Federalist Papers, “The Soul of America”; and one of the student’s own choosing. The student must also have some form of community service.

Supervisor Marie Wiles told The Enterprise the high school’s guidance department will “get the word out to students” about the award.

Pledge of Allegiance

Next to address the board was Rosemarie Harrigan, a retired teacher who lives in Guilderland and works with two 15-year-old Guilderland students in her garden.

One of the students told her that, on April 24, the homeroom teacher “berated students for declining to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance. The teacher then told him that Trump was going to have them deported.”

That same day, Harrigan’s other gardening assistant told her, one of the students who had not recited the pledge in homeroom “went on to another class where a teacher there overheard the student’s conversation about the incident in homeroom and chastised the student, saying that they should go report themselves to the principal and that they should be punished.”

Guilderland High School’s “Student & Family Handbook” for the current school year includes this policy for the “Flag Salute and Pledge of Allegiance”:

If you are conscientiously opposed to the pledge or salute, you may abstain from these ceremonies, but you must be respectful of the flag and the others participating in the ceremonies. Objections to our morning flag salute must be shared with your administrator PRIOR to refusing to follow your Homeroom teacher’s directions.

Harrigan said of informing an administrator, “Many students were not aware of that requirement.”

She went on, “It seems clear that neither students nor teachers understand the school’s position on the pledge or that … by law no one can be compelled to say the pledge of allegiance in this democracy.”

She suggested a staff meeting be held to inform “all teachers in the district” and that a letter be sent to parents and students to “clarify the district’s position” in regard to the law.

The landmark ruling on the matter was made in 1943 by the United States Supreme Court in West Virginia v. Barnette.

The case was brought by the Barnett family (court papers incorrectly added an “e” to their last name) who, as Jehovah’s Witnesses, believed saluting the flag would be breaking their covenant with God and committing idolatry.

 Marie and Gathie Barnett, girls 8 and 11 years old, were instructed not to do so by their father so the Slip Hill Grade School expelled them.

In the high court’s 6-to-3 decision, Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

However, states can still require a salute or pledge to the flag as long as exemptions are offered.

Forty-seven states require the Pledge of Allegiance be recited in public schools — Hawaii, Vermont, and Wyoming have no requirement — with varying exemptions for students or staff who wish to opt out. For instance, Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Utah allow exemption only with consent of a parent or guardian.

Harrigan told the school board she thought Guilderland’s requirement to tell an administrator “would have a chilling effect on a student’s ability to exercise their freedom of speech.”

She described the responses from the two teachers alleged by her gardening assistants as “bullying as well as imposing their own personal opinions upon students.”

Harrigan went on, referencing her 39 years as a teacher, “I’m well aware after so many years in education that many teachers use sarcasm as a weapon and they use it to try to control their students. I believe it was very inappropriate.”

She cited a 2006 case, Frazier v. Alexander, from the United States District Court, S.D. Florida

An 11th-grader in a Palm Beach County public high school, Cameron Frazier, had not stood for the pledge since sixth grade, he told teacher Cynthia Alexandre the first time he was in her class.

“You clearly have no respect! You are so ungrateful and so un-American,” Alexandre (whose surname is misspelled in court papers) told Frazier and had him removed from her classroom by administrators and a police officer, according to court papers.

“The district was ordered to pay a student and their family $32,500 for this because the student was ridiculed and called unpatriotic by a teacher,” said Harrigan.

In a 2017 case from Texas, a high school sociology teacher, Benjie Arnold, settled a suit by paying $90,000 after he required student Mari Oliver to write out the pledge when she refused to recite it. Oliver, a Black student at Klein Oak High School near Houston, said she chose not to recite the pledge because it did not match her religious beliefs and because African Americans still experience injustice.

Harrigan concluded by telling the board, “I just want to thank you for letting me exercise my right to talk to you in this manner. I think these are difficult times we’re going through. And I really appreciate your willingness to hear me say my piece.”

Wiles told The Enterprise that she and the high school principal, Michael Piscitelli, had spoken to the school’s lawyer after the meeting. “We all agree, we have to look at it,” Wiles said of the policy, noting it is not a school board policy and should probably be modernized.

The high school will review the policy over the summer, she said, and any changes will be highlighted at the start of the new school year in regular staff meetings and during a school assembly.

The intent of the current policy was for a student to talk to an administrator about not saying the pledge “not to get permission but just to give a heads-up,” said Wiles, adding, “I can see that going away.”

Wiles also said that she and the school board members had received email about the April 24 incident. She immediately looked into it, Wiles said, speaking with the two teachers involved.

“We spend a lot of time talking about the intent and impact of our words,” said Wiles, noting that, in this case, the intent and impact did not line up.

Although deportation was mentioned by the homeroom teacher, Wiles said she didn’t believe the student the comment was directed to “was someone who would have that specific fear.”

The second teacher’s comment, Wiles said, “was more of a reference to our policy.”

Describing the daily ritual, Wiles said that every morning an announcement is made with a student-led pledge and a moment of silence.

“Students can participate or not,” said Wiles, adding that, other than the April 24 incident, she was unaware of any comments being made or any consequences for students who choose not to participate.

“Love, justice and liberation”

Finally, Jessica Palden spoke to the board, saying, “I am role-modeling self advocacy.”

Palden introduced herself to the board as a French teacher at Farnsworth Middle School and said it was her third year teaching at the district, having started her career at Guilderland in 2004 before being tenured at Shenendehowa where she taught French for 12 years.

When, in 2024, she accepted a probationary position to teach French at Farnsworth, Palden said, she “was happy to return to the school community” and felt welcomed by colleagues from 20 years earlier.

As part of its “Personnel Agenda,” a long list that board members did not discuss, the board voted to terminate Palden, “effective close of business June 30, 2025.”

Other than noting the agenda item, Wiles told The Enterprise, when asked about Palden, “There’s nothing I can say.” Palden could not be reached for comment.

Palden described to the board her varied career, living in France and studying at the University of Paris; teaching in both public and private schools that were urban, suburban and international; and working as a writer, an entrepreneur, and a filmmaker.

“I’ve also lived in India, Tibet, and Sri Lanka,” said Palden.

She described the successful pursuits of her three children who “speak French and Tibetan and have accompanied me on trips and living outside the country.”

Palden said that her Farnsworth students last year scored an average of 94.5 percent on their world language exam with the lowest score being 85 percent. “In all my years of teaching, I’ve never had a student fail the New York State French exam,” she said.

She also said her Annual Professional Performance Reviews score shows a final rating of “highly effective.”

Palden said she cultivates “an atmosphere of joy and ease” in her classroom where students “experience an organic love of learning. On any given day, you can hear laughter, music, cultural conversations that foster teachable moments. We sing, we dance, we act, we make art ….

“My classroom is student-centered with creativity, love, justice, and liberation at the core.”

She also said, “I teach children values, respect, kindness, empathy, DEI, human rights, and social justice as mandated by New York state in the world language and culture curriculum. I teach my students to speak up for what is just and I empower them to use their voices. We learn how to listen to each other with respect and to voice our opinions. I seek to role model these values to my students whenever possible.”

Near the close of The Enterprise interview about the three people who commented at Tuesday’s meeting, Wiles said, “We do appreciate when individuals come to board meetings … This is how we learn and continue to get better and demonstrate that we honestly are listening … and we do respond.”

Noting that “we live in times when people have strong feelings about all kinds of topics,” Wiles concluded, “You can’t ask more than that from an elected body … When you know better, you can be better.”