The Chapel Hill – Carrboro City Schools Board of Education voted Thursday night to amend district policy to specifically ban the Confederate flag and Nazi swastika from school grounds.

The vote came after the agenda for Thursday night’s scheduled board meeting was amended to add a discussion of policy concerning the flag. The conversation over the flag and other relics to the Confederacy has intensified after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend left one woman dead. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed when an alleged white supremacist drove his vehicle into a crowd of counter protesters. More than a dozen others were injured.

Thursday night’s vote by the CHCCS board came after the Orange County Schools Board of Education voted on an amended dress code policy Monday night that also bans the Confederate flag and Nazi swastika. The OCS board had been working on the new policy for months and did not initially have a ban of any specific symbols, but that was changed when board chair Stephen Halkiotis suggested the amendment at Monday night’s meeting after the Charlottesville murder.

Chapel Hill – Carrboro City School board chair James Barrett spoke with WCHL’s Blake Hodge about Thursday’s vote. Listen below:

The full statement sent to the CHCCS community Thursday night is below:

Greetings CHCCS Students, Staff and Parents.

One thing we want our students to learn is that, at some point in each of our lives, we will surely have to take a hard stand. This lesson needs not only to be taught, but also modeled at the highest level.

Our Board of Education will always stand for safety, inclusion and acceptance of all. To that end, earlier this evening, our Board of Education took a hard stand on a very controversial issue. We realize our decision will not receive universal support. However, we continually claim the safety of our students is our top priority…well, tonight we became a safer school district.

Our Board voted unanimously to add definitive language to our bullying policy (Policy 1710) and our policy governing an orderly environment (Policy 4315) that specifically bans the Confederate flag, swastikas and other threatening symbols from our campuses.

We took this proactive measure to make sure each principal has an airtight policy to stand on as they each work to maintain a safe and respectful learning environment. This specific revision to the policy will prevent past problems from recurring, and new problems from arising in the coming months and years. 

The recent events in Charlottesville and other places indicate more violence is on the horizon, and this measure was taken to ensure our students are not in harm’s way. 

We look forward to an exciting new school year.

Thank you for your continued support.

James Barrett

Board of Education