Editorial: perfect the patriotic practices

Daily announcements have been altered to have more of an emphasis on patriotism. Students at CVHS are now required to listen to the Pledge of Allegiance and other patriotic messages four days a week.

This change is enforced by a state law that CVHS has been neglecting to follow for the majority of the year. California Education Code 5270 states “In every public secondary school there shall be conducted daily appropriate patriotic exercises.” The Pledge of Allegiance satisfies the requirements of the code, and short biographies of significant Americans are also acceptable.

We at The Olympian believe the addition of pledges and historical figures does have a desired and positive effect on the students. Besides promoting patriotism and increasing national spirit, students are given the chance to learn more about significant people who played an important role in the history of our country besides the common ones found in history books.

The delivery of the information in PA announcements, however, may not work as well as intended. As typical high schoolers, students at CVHS tend to do everything they can to ignore the announcements and talk over them. The extra minutes dedicated to the announcements are taking away precious time from teachers to give their lessons. When students do not actually listen to the presentation of a historical person, then the process is just a waste of time for everyone: the teachers, the announcers, and the students.

Leadership students’ recent execution and enforcement of the legal code has actually been quite admirable if it was given the proper focus it deserves. Instead of including commonly known people like George Washington or Andrew Jackson, they talked about diverse people that made cultural impacts on the United States such as Cesar Chavez.

It would be best for the announcements to be reduced in number. Daily announcements on the loudspeakers of this sort may become excessive. A solution to the struggle of fulfilling the requirements of the legal code and not wasting the time of all the students and teachers could be to create more podcasts to deliver the messages. In general, students are enamored by the projected screen of the short podcasts. Students pay much more attention to the podcasts, so more people would be able to learn things about historical figures if the information was given off through the videos.

Another way to fulfill the legal requirement could be having an interactive day with the students. For example, each Friday could be a trivia contest based on the students knowledge of the country or on what has been mentioned in previous announcements of the week.

An increase in the number of patriotic activities at CVHS could be a welcome change. Students could benefit by learning more about those that made a difference and helped shape the country. The Olympian sees no harm with the additional announcements, but there are definitely changes that could be made to improve them.