Two answers for your tabulation.
A) My father-in-law’s claims/recollections:
Until what grade level was the Pledge conducted every day at your school?
Throughout all grades – however, he and his buddy were kicked out of class for refusing to recited it because they didn’t like what they heard was being done to Japanese Americans around the West Coast, then they were reinstated because the Principal agreed with them and told them ‘Just stand and mumble instead so you won’t bring attention on yourselves.’
Approximately how long ago was this?
Graduated in the middle of WWII
What part of the country are you in?
Wisconsin
B) My own experience:
Until what grade level was the Pledge conducted every day at your school?
[ul]
[li]Grades K-3 I was saying it wrong or mumbling because I didn’t really know the words.[/li][li]Grade 4 I said it correctly after learning the words.[/li][li]Grades 5&6 the teachers didn’t make the class recite it.[/li][li]Grade 7-9 the home-room (2nd period) class recited it and on Fridays a song would play over a campus-wide loudspeaker.[/li][li]By 7th grade I understood it and would mumble the religious line.[/li][li]By 8th grade I was socially/politically aware and replaced it with my own version* and either nobody paid attention to me or they didn’t object.[/li][li]Grades 10-12 we didn’t have to recite it.[/li][/ul]
Approximately how long ago was this?
1970 through 1982-83
What part of the country are you in?
Southern California
–G!
*I’ll pledge allegiance
to no flag
Or nation-state
Even America
But to a Republic
If it Truly Stands (as)
One Nation of no gods
Indivisible (and)
With Liberty and Justice for ALL
ETA: I do have allegiance – to people, but not to flags or political constructs.
I graduated in 2005, Maryland public schools, and it was part of the morning announcements every day all the way through 12th grade, but we didn’t have to say it. I would say most everyone did through 8th grade, but I stopped in high school along with probably half the class. We were supposed to be quiet while others were saying it, but nobody bothered us about it–it just wasn’t a big deal. We didn’t have to stand, either.
Let’s see - I’m 52 years old and I last stood for the Pledge this morning at 8:20.
My school is grades 6-8, and everyone in every room, including the office, stands up every morning while the principal recites it. I don’t personally say the Pledge, partly because of the “under God” thing and partly because I think it’s at least a little weird to pledge allegiance to the symbol of the country rather than the country itself, but we, as an organization, require everyone to at least stand up and be quiet while the people who want to say it do so.
As for my own school years, I seem to recall that we were required to do the same all the way through high school. I graduated in 1978 and I’m in New Mexico.
It looks like it ended with elementary school for a lot of people. My guess is that’s because through elementary school you were in one classroom throughout the day, but then in junior high you started moving around to different rooms for each class. That’s how it was where I went to school. I suppose they could just still say it once in the day and get it done, but I’m guessing this may be related.
Every year through high school. There was never a day when it wasn’t expected for us to mumble through it first thing in homeroom. (Personally, I mumbled even more incoherently during the “under God” part.)
I said it until 6th grade (1963). I think it was the Madelyn Murray O’hair case that may have changed it in our Southwest district. She was a famous atheist activist (forgotten now), and went to court against the Baltimore school district for Bible readings at school. Anyway, our school district apparently saw the writing on the wall (ooops! sorry, Bible reference) and stopped school prayers and the pledge about then.
As an aside, although she was a strident, self-promoting and annoying person , I would not wish on anyone the nature of her death.
They did it through high school (I opted out*). New York State Catholic school, 1980s. Of course you were supposed to stand for the pledge and then sit for prayer which didn’t make a lot of sense to me.
*Which is to say, there wasn’t an option (as mentioned upthread), I just refused to do it. I found out years later that they were angry about it but chose not to make a case out of it, which was good.
said it in elementary, didn’t say it in high school. don’t remember if we said it in jr high or not. almost always had a flag in the classrooms though.
1st grade Catholic school in Baltimore I don’t remember ever saying it.
2nd, 5th and 6th grades public school in Anne Arundel County I we said it. In 5th grade one of my class mates was a Jehovah’s Witness and he gave a small talk on his religious beliefs why he was not allowed to say the pledge. He never stood up.
3rd and 4th grades Catholic school, I don’t remember saying it but we probably did. I don’t remember praying in class either and we probably did that too.
I never had prayer in public school. I was really surprised to find out that some school systems did.
I don’t remember ever reciting the pledge after 6th grade.
My son went to the same public schools as I did and he graduated in June. He says they said the pledge up through the 12 grade.
Either I don’t remember saying the pledge or things changed between the 70s and now.
At least until high school, where the vice principal screwed up the the words “And to the republic for which it stands” as “To the uh, nation, which it, uh represents.” Which led us to giggle about how the vice principal must be a commy if he couldn’t memorize the Pledge.
