An Atlanta school is dropping the Pledge of Allegiance and will instead ask students to recite the ‘Wolf Pack Chant’.
Atlanta Neighborhood Charter School announced last week it will be eliminating the Pledge of Allegiance from its morning agenda to make the institution more inclusive.
The news came to parents by way of a news release from the school’s elementary campus president Lara Zelski who wrote, “Students will continue to lead the meeting by asking our community to stand to participate in our Wolf Pack Chant together. Students will also be given the opportunity to say the pledge at another point during the school day within their classroom.”
Zelski said school officials made the decision to eliminate the morning tradition based on events in the last few years where “more and more” students and staff have chosen not to recite or stand during the pledge.
The “Wolf Pack Chant’ will be a new pledge created by the students and teachers. It is most likely named after the school’s wolf mascot, and according to Zelski will “focus on students’ civic responsibility to their school family, community, country and our global society.”
The charter school opened in 2002 in the Grant Park neighborhood and serves students from kindergarten to fifth grade.
The Atlanta charter school isn’t the first to eliminate the Pledge of Allegiance. Bedford Area School District in southcentral Pennsylvania said in April it will not require students to stand for the pledge.