In a blur of motion, a Joe Serna Jr. Charter School student rushes past a composite image of the Statue of Liberty and American flag made up of student's pictures on Monday afternoon. Parents and staff at the school are debating whether or not students should recite the Pledge of Allegiance. (Dan Evans/News-Sentinel)

Pledge debate

Joe Serna Jr. Charter School discusses Pledge of Allegiance

To pledge or not to pledge? That's the question at Joe Serna Jr. Charter School.

School officials have decided to reexamine a policy regarding whether students should be required to say the Pledge of Allegiance after a group of parents took issue with the line "one nation under God," said Catherine Pennington, assistant superintendent of elementary education for Lodi Unified School District.

Around the beginning of the school year, Joe Serna Jr. Charter School staff organized an advisory committee in response to parent concerns about students being required to make the pledge.

Before the debate began, students at Joe Serna Jr. Charter School would say the pledge in English and in Spanish every Wednesday at a schoolwide assembly.

Teachers are not required to lead their students in the Pledge of Allegiance, according to California education code, but they do need to engage their class in some sort of patriotic exercise each day.

"The flag salute, obviously, is the one we're most familiar with," Pennington said, but students can sing a song, have a moment of silence or any number of things.

By California education code, charter schools do not have to have such an observance, according to the California Department of Education.

Michael Gillespie, principal at Joe Serna Jr. Charter School, would not comment on the matter.

Aspire Public Schools, an organization that helps run three charter schools in Lodi Unified, did not return phone calls Monday afternoon to say whether or not its schools participated in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Rod Mara, vice principal and fifth-grade teacher at St. Peter Lutheran School, said classes say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning in their individual classrooms.

Jennifer Nelson-Burgher, a self-described history buff and parent of both a sixth-grader and an eighth-grader at Joe Serna Jr. Charter School, said she believes the phrase "under God" — added to the pledge by act of Congress in 1954 — was added as a result of the McCarthy era of the late 1940s and early 1950s.

"I'm not offended by the pledge itself. I'm offended that it was bastardized," she said.

Nelson-Burgher does not practice an organized religion at home. However she feels that the phrase "under God" is exclusionary.

She said she loves the Sting Ray Pledge, which the school instituted sometime after the debate about the Pledge of Allegiance came forward.

Students now say the Sting Ray Pledge at their Wednesday assemblies, according to Nelson-Burgher.

The Sting Ray is Joe Serna Jr. Charter School's mascot.

"It's very inspirational, very powerful," she said.

However, some parents are outraged that the issue is even a discussion topic.

"Don't get me started," said Marianne Henderson, 33, who was picking up her son from the school Monday afternoon. "I'm very upset."

Henderson believes that the pledge is an American tradition that everybody should respect.

Just as she would respect and participate in German traditions if she was to travel to Germany, Henderson said she expects people to respect American traditions while in the United States.

"We live in America," said Henderson, struggling against her anger to get the words out. "You respect each country's traditions."

Lupe Lisojo, 33, had a Bible in her car as she picked up her seventh-grader from school Monday afternoon.

"I don't agree with them taking (the phrase) out," she said. "I believe in a higher power."

In 2004, Michael Newdow made national headlines when he brought a similar complaint about the phrase "under God" before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of his daughter who attended school in Elk Grove Unified School District. However, the court ruled that Newdow did not have the right to bring up the matter under his daughter's name because the girl's mother had sole custody of the child at the time Newdow initially filed the lawsuit.

The Supreme Court's decision overturned a previous ruling in favor of Newdow.

Kim Gillespie, Michael Gillespie's wife and parent of two children at the school, said she doesn't have a problem with the pledge.

She said she comes from a long line of relatives who have served in the armed forces. She said she feels that saying the pledge is a way of recognizing those who risked their lives for their country.

"We can go to sleep at night and know that we're pretty safe compared to other countries," Kim Gillespie said.

Also a teacher at Lodi Middle School, Kim Gillespie said she doesn't require her students to say the pledge.

Joe Serna Jr. Charter School's pledge advisory committee is still discussing whether or not the school will say the Pledge of Allegiance. When it finishes receiving input from the community and makes its decision, the pledge could be reinstituted as it was originally.

Even so, Nelson-Burgher said, her efforts will not have been wasted.

"It was still worth the battle to raise people's awareness."

Contact reporter Amanda Dyer at amandad@lodinews.com.