Gordon Elementary students honor the flag each school day

Each school day at Gordon Elementary School, three fifth-grade students raise the U.S. flag in the morning and lower and fold it at dismissal.

The Student Flag Crew is chosen by classroom teachers. Members are selected because they consistently show the habits the job requires: punctuality, care with a national symbol, and the ability to work as a team.

Alexis, Kamryan and Arya are this year’s crew. They are learning the practical rules of display — hoist the flag briskly, lower it ceremoniously, and fold it so only the union of stars is visible — and the civic meaning behind those rules. That includes when and why the flag is flown at half-staff: first raised to the peak, then lowered to the midpoint as a sign of national mourning and respect.

The lesson became concrete after country musician Dolly Parton died Aug. 25. By presidential proclamation, U.S. flags flew at half-staff through sunset Sept. 1. The students practiced the half-staff procedure and talked about the flag as a shared emblem used in times of remembrance, not only on ordinary school days.

Gordon Elementary, which serves prekindergarten through fifth grade in the Linden Oaks community, is named for Master Sgt. Gary I. Gordon, a Medal of Honor recipient killed in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993. For students in a military community, the daily flag detail is a small, visible act of citizenship: showing respect for the colors their families serve under and for the responsibilities that come with them.

School leaders say the assignment is an honor and a duty. The crew’s work is one way Gordon students practice the character the school expects — respect, responsibility, service and unity — while learning, by doing, how Americans mark both ordinary days and solemn ones.