Steve Campbell speaks at the school board meeting Sept. 18.

The De Pere school board concluded on Sept. 18 that the district will regulate what flags will be flown outside the school, while postponing the decision for what is flown inside the school.

The members discussed a second adaptation to the pre-proposed policy making it required for flags to be reviewed before being hung up in district school buildings. 

Flags permitted to be flown outside the school include the United States flag, the Wisconsin flag, the DPHS school flag and the Prisoners of War-Missing in Action (POW-MIA) flag. 

The meeting began with public comments, after board president Adam Clayton went over rules and guidelines for the comments. With each person limited to 3 minutes of talking time, 20 people got up to speak. Comments were approximately 50/50 for and against the policy being passed. 

Maureen Hodgdon, a parent and De Pere resident, said that she is concerned about the students’ learning being censored as well as the revised policy making school an unwelcoming environment. 

Hodgdon asked school board members to “vote ‘no’ to the second version of this policy and keep it as the inclusive environment that we have today.” 

However, many community members have voiced concern with the pride flag being displayed in classrooms. People in favor of this policy being passed spoke about their issues with the “radical education” methods used by teachers in schools. 

“The ultimate goal is to turn the child into an angry, unstable political activist. That is not education, that is indoctrination,” citizen Doug Reich said.

Contrarily, DPHS student Ingrid Nohara worried that the removal of the pride flag from classrooms while allowing county flags to endure would violate the school’s anti-harassment policies because this policy cannot, “allow certain flags without other flags, such as allowing the (international) flags in the cafeteria to remain without allowing pride flags because that would be an act of discrimination,” Nohara said.

After public comments were given, school board members discussed what they wanted to do with the policy. 

Board member Brittony Cartwright said that the intention is not to control school staff but instead to give them this policy to lean back on.

Cartwright says that this is meant to be a, “living document that would change as issues might be brought forward.”

Notably, school board treasurer Jeff Mirkes described the flag policy as, “a solution looking for a problem.” 

Clayton additionally believed that the flags being displayed in DPHS were never a problem to begin with.

The board meeting concluded with Cartwright suggesting that the policy be split into two separate issues: one regarding what is displayed inside and one regarding what is displayed outside. 

Discussion about what can be displayed inside the building will be held in October at the next board meeting.