Confederate Flags, Swastikas To Be Banned At Carroll County Schools
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- The Carroll County Public School system is moving forward with banning the Confederate flag and swastikas as part of its dress code.
A new dress code regulation is in the works to ban students from wearing the symbols at school.
The language for the ban will be discussed further at a March school board meeting, but preliminary, it also appears that it will include the appearance of those images on vehicles that are driven onto school property.
The superintendent says times change.
A new dress code regulation will reflect that, banning what are generally considered symbols of hate: the Confederate flag and swastikas.
Carroll County Public Schools Superintendent Stephen Guthrie says it's time to keep them out of classrooms.
"It symbolizes to them: hate, intolerance, or promotes violence," Guthrie said.
He's working to ban the symbols through a dress code crackdown.
A new regulation will prevent students from wearing the controversial images to school or displaying them in the parking lots.
"Our primary obligation as a public school system is to provide an environment that is conducive to learning," Guthrie said. "I will prohibit anything that interferes with that primary objective."
Last spring, Carroll County school administrators ordered teachers to take down political posters, banning images educators say were intended to promote diversity.
Students protested.
"If it's something that can be harmful or offensive to someone else in the learning environment, maybe that could be the line," student Riley Long said.
This time, students say they don't want to be silenced, but they do want their classmates to feel safe.
"You have to decide where safety is," said student Gillian Vanditen. "If you make someone feel threatened, I don't think that should be okay in a school."
The superintendent has the power to just put the rule in place, but chose to make the process public.
The next step is to write the regulation and send it to the board of education.
There is no set timeline for when it will be on the books.
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