The Anchorage School District said Thursday it was wrong for students to display a Confederate battle flag in a Chugiak High School hallway, and if they tried it again, they would be stopped.
While the district agreed the First Amendment grants students some freedom of speech rights in school, that doesn't include behavior and images considered inappropriate in a school setting, said district spokeswoman Heidi Embley.
"We want all students to feel safe and welcome, and we want a culture of respect in our schools," Embley said in an interview. "We don't feel a Confederate flag represents that."
Last week, five Chugiak High students posed with a large Confederate flag, exhibiting the characteristic stars and bars, and several American flags in the school hallway. A photo of them circulated widely.
On Thursday, school administrators met with the five students and their parents and had "a good conversation," Embley said. Part of the conversation "was about what the Confederate flag symbolizes for many people and how the students can move forward to make everyone feel welcome and safe at the school, " she said.
Embley declined to provide information about the students' intentions when they posed for the photograph. She also declined to say if the students faced any repercussions. She said she was prevented from releasing that information by federal law protecting student privacy.
"We're about helping students grow and learn and we believe that was what a lot of the conversation was about today," she said. "We really do see this as an opportunity to educate students about the power of their actions."
[Chugiak High officials asking why students posed with Confederate flag]
Unless new information becomes available, Embley said, Chugiak administrators had mostly completed their investigation by Thursday into the circumstances surrounding the photograph.
Embley said the district didn't have plans to address the issue further, outside of the private meeting with students and speaking with anyone who raised concerns.
The Chugiak High principal did not return a request for comment.
Shannon Talley, a former Alaskan who now lives in Washington, D.C., and has an African-American relative who attends Chugiak High, called for the district to do more. She said school administrators should speak with additional students as well as the community.
"If nothing else, just sending a letter to say, 'Hey, we regret that some of our students took this action, however this is not how we feel, all students are welcome, all cultures are welcome, we do our best to teach tolerance,'" she said. "Not just, 'We talked to those kids and they won't do it again.' "
NAACP Anchorage President Kevin McGee said the district had to take the time to speak with more students, educating them about the impact of the Confederate symbol. McGee said, as an African American man, the Confederate flag instilled fear in him. Talley said the flag represented racism, separatism and slavery.
Some supporters of the flag say it symbolizes rebellion, or Southern pride, not racism.
Talley questioned why the students couldn't use a different symbol — such as a state flag that represents a Southern state.
"If you're proud of who you are, you're proud of where you're from, great. Shout it from the rooftops. But don't use a symbol of hate to do that," she said.
Makenna Girard, a senior at Chugiak High, said a peer had posted the photograph of the students holding the Confederate flag to Snapchat on Friday. She said she felt the students only had the flag to "aggravate and insult people because they knew it would get a reaction."
When speaking with other students about the photograph, they had mixed reactions, she said. Some felt the photograph was being blown out of proportion and others felt that attention had to be brought to the controversial issue of bringing a Confederate battle flag to school, she said.
Students from another high school told her they couldn't believe it really happened, she said.
Girard said the flag represented something that did not belong in school.
"As soon a someone says, 'this makes me feel unsafe at school,' that is concerning to me," she said.
During her literature class Thursday, Girard said a teacher and administrator spoke with the class about how one's rights should not infringe on another's safety.
Embley said there is no districtwide policy that specifically addresses Confederate flags, but each school administration would decide what's appropriate in its building.
If a student displayed the flag in school in the future, Embley said, the school principal would speak with the student "and determine an appropriate course of action."