Arrested Because of the Pledge of Allegiance?

        I grew up in a school system that taught my classmates and I to say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning which seemed so natural and normal to me. When I saw in the news that an eleven year old boy was arrested for refusing to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, I was completely shocked and honestly very confused.

        This arrest happened on February 4, when a boy from Lawton Chiles Middle Academy in Lakeland, Florida, was suspended and charged with "disrupting a school function and resisting arrest without violence" according to the New York Post, because he believes that the "flag was racist and the anthem was offensive". The mother of the arrested child, told officials that the school should have handled his disciplinary actions, rather than bringing the police into the matter. The sixth graders substitute teacher didn't want to "continue dealing with him" and she said that is the reason why she called the school's main office in the first place.
       Because Alvarez, the substitute teacher, did not know that students aren't required to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance, she will no longer be able to work at Lawton Chiles Middle Academy or at any of the district's schools, mainly because of the harsh way this whole incident was handled.