There is one simple – no, excruciatingly effortless – form of patriotism a school can give to its country. It doesn’t require enrollment in the military, and it doesn’t require embarrassment of students at the expense of the country. It only takes one minute; it’s the Pledge of Allegiance.

During the 2012 school year, we’ve only said the Pledge once, on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Our school is plagued by secularity. It is so self-consumed, that it can’t take one single minute out of its day to honor its country.

Some may complain, saying “I have the right in America, to not say the Pledge of Allegiance.” Well that’s a shame. If you don’t have the simple common sense to give honor to the country that gives you those rights, if you don’t have the decency to pay homage to the country that lets you have free speech, free press, free belief, then you are a fool.

Personally, I find it embarrassing that I even have to write about this topic. To have to bring awareness to a school that will not take a minute out of its day to give honor to a country that gives “liberty and justice to all” is humiliating.

I asked campus supervisor Dana Eaton who gives the announcements everyday why we don’t say the Pledge of Allegiance anymore.

“We used to,” he said. “I used to do [the Pledge] every day.”

So why did we stop? What caused us to become a school that has become too self-absorbed to take just one minute out of our day to honor our country? 

“I kept getting reports that class rooms were being so loud, noisy, and disrespectful [during the Pledge]. So I cut back, so that it was only done on Mondays and Fridays,” Eaton said. “But classrooms were getting so noisy and disrespectful that I had to stop. It’s totally disrespectful to those who are trying to say it but they can’t, because their classrooms are too loud and noisy.”

So why are classrooms so rowdy? What does it say about Foothill if its students are unwilling to be respectful during the Pledge of Allegiance?

Last year, Foothill’s API score secured it a place as one of California’s top twenty public schools; we know that our teachers are some of the best in the state. The reason Foothill doesn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance boils down to one reason: neither Foothill students nor Foothill teachers care.

If a public school, which receives funding from one of the 50 united states, doesn’t provide an environment where its students are able recite the Pledge of Allegiance without distraction, then it is a hopeless situation that has too much hypocrisy and not enough patriotism.

This isn’t to say that everyone should be forced to say the Pledge of Allegiance. People who say they have the right to not recite it are absolutely correct. I just hope they remember who gave them that right.