Critics Blast Proposed Restrictive Marblehead School Flag Policy

MARBLEHEAD, MA — The often-contentious, year-long debate on who should be the arbitrator of which flags are allowed to be displayed in Marblehead Public Schools appears headed for a discussion and vote of the School Committee on a policy that would minimize student voice in those decisions in favor of a more restrictive policy that would recognize a handful of flags with official legal status and leave additional requests to the discretion of the School Committee.

The proposed policy drew about 20 minutes of public comment criticism at the start of Friday's School Policy Subcommittee meeting — which was held late in the morning while students were in school — and came three weeks after a group of two dozen students attended another Subcommittee meeting and pushed to have their voices heard in flag-display decisions.

• Marblehead Students Fight For Say In School Flag Policy

"It is not an issue around First Amendment rights," School Committee Chair Jennifer Schaeffner said of the legal opinion presented to the Committee on Friday. "It is an issue of government speech. What (legal counsel's) opinion was ... we have to be careful about what it is that we're saying (through flag displays) as (representing) government speech."

The students who spoke at the Feb. 13 meeting said that certain flags that they considered "inclusive" — such as flags supporting LGBTQ+ rights and Black Lives Matter — were important to foster a sense of belonging in the school community and to show support for marginalized populations.

While Schaeffner said at that meeting that a potential danger in an open policy would be that the schools could be susceptible to requests to display flags that were contrary to the values of the majority of students, the students, essentially, said that they should have a say in which flags should and should not be displayed based on the prevailing values of themselves and the school community.

Schaeffner indicated at Friday's meeting that legal counsel recommended otherwise so that the district does not risk legal action against it.

"We take our advice from our attorney — particularly in this case," Schaeffner said. "And if there are folks out there who would like us to ignore our attorney's advice, that's not something I'm willing to do. Other School Committee members may choose to do that.

"But we go down a slippery slope when we stop listening to what our attorney says. If people have issues with the attorney, that's another story. But we do have them. They are giving us advice and we do potentially put ourselves at risk if we specifically do not follow their advice."

Schaeffner said she will seek further clarification on some aspects of the proposed policy prior to its presentation to the full School Committee for consideration and possible first vote on March 20.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)