Shortly before the after-prom celebrations of 2024, the international flags were taken down from the spine to make room for a zipline. Students then returned to an unfamiliar sight: the halls of the spine—once colored with the many flags of students that had attended Floyd Central High School—now lie barren and colorless. The only remnant of what once was, a large American flag now solely dominates the former cascade of symbols, stars, and stripes.
The silent removal has since caused some confusion and outcry among those tasked with advocating for diversity inside FC’s corridors.
The Diversity Advisory Council is one of the most vocal opponents of the removal of the flags. While its attention is currently directed toward the spine, the DAC’s responsibilities are not limited to it.
“The DAC is supposed to be a council that informs the principal about the goings-on within the school community that involve diversity, so if we see any issues with people being excluded intentionally based on anything that would fall under diversity, which would be gender, race, ethnicity, or religion … then we would address that issue and bring it to the attention of the administration. And in reverse, we are also supposed to highlight the diversity and try to use teaching tools around the building so that people are aware of how diverse our population really is,” said Lindsay Peden, FC English teacher and head of the DAC.
Despite the flags involving FC diversity, according to members of the DAC, they were not made aware nor consulted about the decision before their removal. In addition, until recently, the council was in the dark as to who made the decision.
“I was unaware that the flags were gone, and my DAC came in for a meeting at the end of the year last year, right around prom time, and they told me they were gone. So I immediately emailed Mr. Hatton and said DAC had brought it to my attention that the flags were gone—was there a rationale behind that? He responded to me, so there is no one named,” said Peden.
A similar email was sent to the Bagpiper. Stating the initial reason for the removal of the flags in addition the motive behind their continued absence.
“When they were taken down for After Prom, we didn’t have them put back up because they do not represent the students that we currently have at FC. The Diversity Advisory Council is coming up with another display to represent the nationalities of our students,” said principal Scott Hatton in a September 3rd email to the Bagpiper.
The members of the DAC’s reaction to this decision was one of confusion. Part of their curiosity was sourced from the lack of consultation with the DAC before the flag’s removal.
“We were like, ‘Why is it gone?’ during the meeting, they just told us that they took it down after prom because of ziplines and then that they needed to be cleaned. Then we asked why the American flag was still up but the other flags were taken down, and we didn’t get an answer for that. I don’t know who was behind it,” said senior Precious Flahn.
Council members were not the only ones surprised by the removal, but the missing flags were not immediately noticed by some of the student body.
“I was not aware until someone had pointed it out to me, and then I realized that they were taken down,” said senior Autumn Baumgardner.
Immediately upon the realization and discovery of the lack of flags, the members of the DAC acted immediately seeking reasoning behind the removal.
“We didn’t even know it was removed until we saw it, and then we pulled him into our DAC meeting and [Hatton] tried to give us reasons behind it,” said Flahn.
The administration had motives regarding the removal, chiefly being the flags’ ability to accurately and adequately represent the current population of FC.
“The flag’s been up there, not touched, probably—I don’t even know how many years, maybe five years or so or more. And so, does it represent the students that we have at Floyd Central? And it more than likely does not. There may be quite a few students from other nationalities that don’t have their flag up there. So this would have been a good time to take them down, see if they were sun-bleached, and possibly use this time to think of something else to represent our students,” said Principal Scott Hatton.
Despite the administration’s view that the flags fell short in the manner of representation, the DAC disagrees. In their view, the representation of past students is just as important as current students.
“We discussed some of the flags that were hanging. We no longer had students in the school from those countries. The DAC argues that it’s part of our past, that’s part of our culture, that’s part of our community, it’s still part of who we are. Just because a certain country isn’t represented this year doesn’t mean those kids might not be hanging on the wall of fame. And they feel like they should still be represented as new people come in. So they felt like the flags did a nice job of representing our school community’s past, present, and future,” said Peden.
Several students also held similar feelings towards the flags, seeing their disappearance as a negative for the school and its multicultural population.
“I was a little upset because the flags meant something, especially to some students who are foreign, and they do transfer here, and I guess I mean, they honestly meant something to those countries as well,” said Baumgardner.
Despite the initial negative reactions from the DAC, the council eventually concluded that the goal was not to remove diversity but to innovate the school’s way of representing it.
“I think we did at first, but now we realize that [Hatton’s] goal was to have a new way to represent our student body. But I do believe that we should have some way to represent the past students, too,” said senior Lauren Pappas.
In terms of that representation, as of right now, the council has not developed a replacement. They are attempting to come to an agreement that will satisfy both the FC administration and the DAC.
“I’m not sure as of yet, but I know that the DAC and everybody in it are working towards some type of situation for agreement,” said Pappas.
While new solutions remain as mere ideas and concepts, Hatton is open to leaving the spine open to a return to the old manner of representation. If the DAC is unable to come up with a solution better than or equal to the quality of representation the flags provided, they would at the behest of the council, hang them back up with certain prerequisites.
“The council is still discussing [their suggestions]. Now, if they come back and say, ‘You know what, Mr. Hatton, we cannot think of anything better than to have the flags back up in the spine,’ okay, then I don’t see a reason why [we shouldn’t]. What I would want to do though, of course, is we’d have to figure out what students we have from what countries to make sure that no one’s left out. I don’t want to leave anyone out,” said Hatton.
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