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Asking your students to show respect for the flag is apparently a way to end a teaching career in Colorado. Karen Smith’s 30-year teaching career ended with child abuse charges because she ordered a student to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
Police investigated Smith and subsequently charged her with child abuse for demanding that her class honor the pledge, The Boulder Daily Camera reports. An unidentified student reportedly refused to stand for the pledge earlier in the year. Smith supposedly pulled the student to his feet by his jacket.
School officials referred the matter to the Lafayette Colorado Police Department. As a result of the incident, the school placed Smith on administrative leave. They eventually suspended Smith with pay.
Now Facing 18-Month Jail Sentence For “Forcing” Pledge Of Allegiance
“We are cooperating with the District Attorney’s Office and respect their decision on this matter,” a Boulder Valley School District spokesman told The Daily Camera. Not surprisingly, Smith is retiring from her 30 years of teaching. But that’s not the end of the story.
Smith pleaded guilty on August 30 to one count of child abuse “resulting in injury.” As a consequence of a plea deal, Smith is now living under a deferred 18-month jail sentence. She is attempting to avoid more serious charges by accepting this plea deal.
She Can Keep Her Teacher’s License: But Will She Go To Jail?
Unbelievably, Smith is now living with a criminal record for a Class-Two misdemeanor. To put it briefly, a Class-Two misdemeanor is punishable by up to 18 months in jail in Colorado. Nonetheless, the District Attorney is supposed to withdraw the guilty plea if Smith “stays out of trouble” for 18 months.
Smith is not able to teach for 18 months under the terms of the plea deal, Boulder County District Attorney’s office spokeswoman Catherine Olguin said. Oddly, Smith can keep her teacher’s license but will go to jail if she teaches.
The Colorado Department of Education is apparently making no effort to revoke Smith’s Teacher’s license. Currently, Smith is minimizing her exposure to the media according to The Daily Camera. It is possible for Smith to teach in Colorado again if she keeps her license and completes the 18-month sentence.
“People’s Republic” Criminalizes The Pledge Of Allegiance
Karen Smith was teaching at Angevine Middle School in Lafayette, Colorado, at the time of the incident. Lafayette is a suburb of Boulder, a Colorado city that carries the nickname “The People’s Republic of Boulder” because of its left-wing politics.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is also now involved with the case, The Daily Camera is reporting. The NAACP is involved even though the student’s race is being kept secret.
“It was very concrete,” NAACP chapter President Robert Stuart said. “We are going to meet again. The superintendent and the person in charge of human relations seemed to hear everything we said.”
Stuart blames “structural issues” at Angevine Middle School for the incident. Unfortunately, Stuart doesn’t identify just what the structural issues are.
Stuart later said that the student involved is Hispanic but admits he was unable to confirm this assertion. However, district documents have described Karen Smith as white, The Daily Camera reports.
Supreme Court Ruling Says The Pledge Of Allegiance Can Be Ignored
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional for schools to force students to sit or stand during the Pledge of Allegiance. A 1943 Supreme Court decision, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette gives students the right to ignore the Pledge.
The ruling does make it constitutional to fire a teacher for using force to demand respect for the Pledge of Allegiance. Still, it does seem that the U.S. is drifting into new territory as “respect” for the Pledge and the Flag continues to get challenged. This contention comes anywhere from NFL players to middle schoolers and many in between.
Where’s All This Going?
At some point, we all need to ask ourselves… what is it that binds us? What holds us together as a nation? After all, no nation in history has ever survived the loss of its faith and its core beliefs. People used to call it treason when anyone employed the freedoms granted by God and established by our Constitution to then spit on the Constitution and its symbols.
As we continue to push God out of the public square, we can expect more chaos and confusion in this extremely important discussion.
