By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
A teacher at Burning Tree Elementary School in Bethesda was told this week to take down the Pride flag in her classroom. The principal, Jennifer Redden, called it a political statement. Within days, after pushback from the teacher and outside attention, the school reversed course and let the flag stay.
Montgomery County Public Schools confirmed the sequence of events. The teacher, who spoke to Bethesda Today on condition of anonymity, citing concern about retaliation from the district, described the toll of the back and forth. “I was heartbroken about it. I was very, very emotional,” she said.
The episode reads like a policy dispute. It was not one. Montgomery County has no board-adopted rule governing which flags can hang in a classroom. What happened at Burning Tree was one principal’s judgment call, made and then unmade, with nothing in writing to guide the next teacher who asks the same question.
“What happened at Burning Tree was one principal’s judgment call, made and then unmade, with nothing in writing to guide the next teacher who asks the same question.”
That puts Montgomery County in an unusual spot. Zoom out to the rest of Maryland and a clearer picture forms: on the question of what belongs on a classroom wall, the state’s largest school districts have reached almost every possible answer, and none of them agree with each other.
“On the question of what belongs on a classroom wall, Maryland’s largest school districts have reached almost every possible answer.”
Five Counties, Five Different Landings
- Carroll County banned Pride flags outright. The board voted 4-1 in June 2022 to limit classroom and building displays to the U.S. flag, the Maryland flag, the Carroll County flag, academic achievement banners, and sports banners, tying the move to the district’s existing political neutrality policy. Board member Donna Sivigny called it a “natural extension” of that policy.
- Frederick County went the other way. Its board voted 5-2 in 2026 to allow what the policy calls alternative flags, including Pride flags, in classrooms, so long as they are not disruptive. Board members debated openly that the same standard would also let a MAGA flag or a Confederate flag hang in a classroom under the right circumstances.
- Anne Arundel County considered a restriction similar to Carroll’s and rejected it. A proposal from board member Corine Frank would have limited displays to flags with a “bona fide educational purpose,” decided case by case by principals. The board voted it down in July 2023, four members opposed, three in favor, one abstaining, after teachers and the local NAACP chapter argued it would single out Pride and Black Lives Matter flags.
- Harford County took up a near-identical restriction in 2024 and voted it down 6-2. The proposal would have limited school displays to the American, Maryland, and Harford County flags. A student board member argued the policy was too vague to enforce.
- Montgomery County has no policy at all. The Burning Tree incident was administrative discretion, not board action, and it was reversed just as informally as it was made.
What This Actually Shows
This is not a story about Maryland trending in one direction on classroom flags. It is the opposite. Four of the state’s largest districts have taken the question to a formal board vote in recent years. One banned Pride flags. One built a policy to allow them. Two others rejected restriction outright. Montgomery has never even had the debate in public. That is the more uncomfortable fact for a district MCPS’s size: a single principal’s call, not a board policy, decided a student’s classroom environment this week, and it could just as easily go the other way at the next school with the next complaint.
“A single principal’s call, not a board policy, decided a student’s classroom environment this week.”
Whatever a parent, teacher, or school board member believes the right rule should be, the absence of one in Montgomery County means the current standard is whoever is in the building that day.
“The absence of a rule in Montgomery County means the current standard is whoever is in the building that day.”
This is a developing story. MDBayNews will update if the Montgomery County Board of Education takes up a formal flag policy.
Sources: Reporting from Bethesda Today and Bethesda Magazine (Aug. 27, 2026) on the Burning Tree Elementary incident and MCPS’s statement. Baltimore Sun coverage (April 14, June 9, and Oct. 26, 2022) and the Washington Blade (June 9 and June 17, 2022) on the Carroll County Board of Education’s flag policy vote and its ties to the district’s political neutrality policy. Frederick News-Post coverage (2026) on the Frederick County Board of Education’s 5-2 vote to permit alternative flags. CBS News Baltimore/WJZ coverage by Caroline Foreback (July 2023) on the Anne Arundel County Board of Education’s rejection of a proposed flag restriction, including comment from NAACP representative Mary Dudoney and Teachers Association of Anne Arundel County president Nicole Disney-Bates. Baltimore Sun coverage (April 2024, via Pressreader) on the Harford County Board of Education’s 6-2 vote against a similar restriction.
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