The progressive Pride flag that has flown daily at Sonoma Valley High School since 2019 was set to come down on Monday, the final day it could fly under the old arrangement, after the school board voted 3-2 last Thursday to bar symbolic flags from regular display without board approval; the policy allows them during specified awareness months with board approval. Students and LGBTQIA+ advocates are not taking it quietly: members of the school's Gender & Sexualities Alliance are calling for a mass walkout on Tuesday, and demonstrators say they plan to plant Pride flags on the school's front lawn early Wednesday morning.
The Sonoma Valley Unified School District board approved the new policy during its Oct. 8 meeting, according to the Press Democrat. The rule requires that the U.S. and California state flags fly during school days at the entrance or grounds of every school in the district, permits individual campuses to display their own school flags, and mandates that any other symbolic flag or banner representing a specific group receive board approval and be limited to specific awareness months. The vote fell along the same lines that have defined months of debate: Board President David Bell and trustees Catrina Landry and Jason Lehman voted for the policy, while trustees Anne Ching and Gerardo Guzman dissented, the paper reported.
A Flag's Seven-Year Run Comes to an End
The Pride flag had served as a symbol of LGBTQ inclusion at Sonoma Valley High for seven years before this dispute erupted. Its removal is not without precedent this year — Bell directed staff to take the flag down in January, only for it to be raised again four days later, on Jan. 20, after what the Press Democrat described as significant public outcry. That episode, per the same account, is what pushed board members to begin discussing a formal flag policy in the first place, a process that stretched on through the summer and fall.
Those discussions included a September meeting where more than 30 students, teachers, district staff and other community members spoke on the issue, with most supporting year-round display of the flag, according to Sonoma News. The board also considered and rejected an alternative policy that would have let the school's student Slate make final decisions on proposed symbolic flags, a measure that was defeated at Thursday's meeting, the Press Democrat reported.
Students Say the Policy Feels Personal
Madeleine Edwards, president of the school's Gender & Sexualities Alliance, said growing up queer can create an assumption that a person might not belong in every new room they enter, and that the resulting feeling of exclusion is isolating — one reason she sees making the school welcoming to LGBTQ students as her responsibility. Edwards has accused certain board members of hostility toward LGBTQ students and said some trustees' comments about the flag were insensitive and offensive.
Bell, for his part, has defended the policy as a way to treat all students equally, saying trustees' job is to represent all students equally and arguing that no application process for other groups was created when the Pride flag was first raised in 2019. He has said the flag's intended inclusion effectively became exclusion of all but one group.
Walkout and Flag-Planting Planned This Week
Student organizers are urging all Sonoma Valley High students to join the walkout on Tuesday, with the demonstration scheduled for 11:50 a.m. Community supporters are expected to gather across the street from campus beginning at 11:30 a.m., and protesters are being encouraged to wear rainbow colors, wave Pride flags and bring signs. A separate group of demonstrators has said it plans to plant Pride flags on the high school's front lawn at 7:45 a.m. Wednesday.
Supporters of keeping the flag up have pinned some hope on a change in the board's composition, noting that a newly elected trustee is expected to take office in December. Critics accused the board majority of rushing the new restrictions through ahead of an expected shift in the board majority.
Part of a Wider Pattern in California Schools
Sonoma Valley is not the only Northern California district to wrestle with this fight. Similar disputes have played out in the Temecula Valley Unified, Chino Valley Unified and Sunol Glen districts. In Temecula, the school board voted 3-2 to ban all flags from district campuses — except U.S. and California state flags — unless the superintendent approves them, according to ABC7. That board said the policy was not about any specific flag, though ABC7 reported many people viewed it as targeting the Pride flag specifically.
Members of the public can weigh in on future Sonoma Valley Unified board decisions by attending meetings in person or virtually and offering comment either in person or by videoconference, according to the district. For now, the question of whether the Pride flag returns to regular display at Sonoma Valley High rests on the same board that voted to restrict it — or on whichever trustees take their seats come December.
