School’s Banners Finally Spangled With All 50 Stars

Teacher Gloria Feerst didn’t think twice when she took the American flag off her classroom wall in Woodland Hills so students could count the stars for a math and history lesson.

They counted: 45, 46, 47, 48. . . . Wait a minute, what happened to the other two stars?

“I was surprised and shocked,” said Feerst, who teaches students with learning disabilities at Calabash Street Elementary School, which was built in 1959, the year Alaska and Hawaii joined the Union.

Problem is, the school never updated its Stars and Stripes.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Principal Susan Shaffer, who has run the school for three years. “We counted over and over. . . . There are certain things you should be able to trust.”

Second-grader Jonathan Shapiro suspected the worst.

“I wasn’t too happy about it,” he said. “I thought we had lost two states.”

Teachers did a quick check and found about 10 classroom flags that were shy of the requisite 50 stars. Many more had small tears or holes; a few were water-stained.

The outdated 2-by-3-foot flags were confiscated and have been rolled up in Shaffer’s office ever since.

“We do the Pledge of Allegiance without the flag now,” said second-grader Garrett Brooks. “Now, I look at a globe.”

All schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District were alerted by telephone Tuesday to double-check their Stars and Stripes, especially schools built before Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and 50th states, respectively.

“I’m curious now,” said Warren Mason, who oversees 29 San Fernando Valley schools. “I’m going to look at the flags myself.”

The district’s purchasing managers also unrolled and counted the stars on 302 classroom-size flags from their stock room. All the flags checked out, and the district dispatched 30 fresh flags to Calabash Street.

Today, Calabash Street Elementary also will receive 25 new flags from the local posts of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars in a Flag Day ceremony on campus. Six Calabash Street students will read essays about what the flag means to them. Then the old flags will be carted away for a proper burning, as is customary, and the new flags will be presented, including one that flew over the Capitol in Washington, D.C., donated by U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks).

With that flag, the 25 from the veterans groups and the 30 from the district, Calabash Street Elementary School is now flush with flags.

“We’re not going to add any more states, so I can use them all,” Shaffer said.

“I’m going to always tell new teachers from now on that on the first day of class, you should always count your stars.”